Indeed in the recent multi-country survey by market research firm Synovate, 25 percent of the respondents said that they would rather lose their wallets than their cell phones. Many projects are already being undertaken to investigate the use of mobile phones as mobile wallets.

According to mobile phone reviews, the mobile phone is leading the way from the information age to the connected age. These tiny gadgets now enable us to do everything from surfing the Internet to listening to music or watching videos. Clearly, they are on the way to becoming the primary point of contact with consumers.

The implication for businesses is that they had better learn the art of mobile marketing very quickly. And the key factors are going to be:

• instantaneous access: communication with consumers is going to be real-time and consumers will be able to react far more quickly than with other media

• highly personalized and customised communication: the communication can be targeted towards the needs of each individual to whom it is going out

• high rate of recall: possibly due tithe comparative novelty, mobile marketing is highly effective because of the high recall especially in response to simple and effective communication.

The growing reality of technology is that is that 4G networks will soon be an established part for communication networks. Meanwhile smart phone prices are dropping fast and experts predict that by the year 2013, there will be more smart phones in the world than TV sets or PCs.

Winning marketing strategies will concentrate on fluid and effective communication as well as the ability to produce features such as instant product comparison.

Nokia E72

The Nokia E72 is a device tailor made for business and personal messaging that builds on the company’s most successful full QWERTY keyboard device the E71.

The E72 adds full functionality such as desktop-like email and chat experiences, where the E71 stopped short, and the new model comes complete with the latest version of Ovi Maps with A-GPS navigation and compass, an optical navi key and 5 megapixel camera are all packed into the sleek, beautifully-designed handset.

The Nokia E72 also comes with Nokia’s push consumer email service, Nokia Messaging, and now for the first time people can set up instant messaging (IM) directly from the homescreen, accessing communities such as Windows Live(TM) Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk and Ovi Chat. Just like chatting via the desktop, people can respond to friends and colleagues across multiple communities in real-time.

The Nokia E72 can also accommodate multiple work and personal email accounts and, with separate profiles for work and play, allows people to be flexible when it comes to choosing how, when, where and who to respond to.

Nokia have also revealed search results that show that more people rely on e mails than on traditional phone calls or text messaging when sending and responding to critical information.

Nokia vice president Ukko Lappalainen said;

“The research shows that people are spending an average of five full days per year – equivalent to a full work week – responding to emails. Half of us (46 percent) choose email over voice or text to send and receive important information. The Nokia E72 was designed exactly with this kind of person in mind – it allows the owner to be more responsive and communicate how they want, whenever they want and wherever they are.”

However business managers should be aware that according to the Nokia survey 49% of us prioritise e mails from our partners, ahead of our bosses or managers (29%), colleagues (23%) and surprisingly customers (31%).

Orange Venture for Small Businesses

A new offer from Orange Business Services focusses on the fact that running a small business is not a nine-to-five job, and that small business owners tend to continue making business calls well into the evening and most weekends.

So they are offering a new service called Orange Venture.  The benefits of this service include a choice of two of the following four unlimited benefits: UK landline calls, calls to other Orange mobiles, UK weekend or evening calls; and also inclusive minutes for international calls from the UK to 28 countries on selected plans.

The service also includes Orange Cover to insure you against lost, stolen or damaged mobile handsets and business customer services team available from 8AM to 8PM Monday to Saturday (obviously forgetting that many small business owners also work on Sundays!)

Visit the Orange Business Services website to find out more.

What does the Vodafone small business plan include?

Calls 24/7 to an area code of your choice
Calls to all other Vodafone customers on current business price plans
Calls 24/7 to all UK landlines (24 month contracts)
Calls to company mobiles on the same price plan
Calls to up to five nominated company landlines

There are further savings with 50% extra voice minutes free on 24 month contracts, and 25% extra voice minutes free on 18 month contracts; as well as rollover unused minutes and flat rate international calls.

As with all business mobile phone tarifs and services, there is much more complexity to confuse you. But added value is on offer including half-price mobile email at just £5 a month, fixed price text, email and mobile internet services, and the ability to change your business price plan after just six months.

24 month plan costs are:

100 minutes – £18.15
300 minutes – £24.75
800 minutes – £53.62
1200 minutes – £111.37
3000 minutes – £160.87

BT Broadband Office for small and medium business have special offer for the BlackBerry^® Internet Service for just £25.25 per month.

BT Broadband office are offering the BlackBerry^® Internet Service with a choice of two tariffs – an inclusive minutes package and a pay as you go option.

The BlackBerry^® Internet Service includes:
Unlimited emails
Unlimited Calls to colleagues
Inclusive BlackBerry^® handset
£100 credit on your bill (on all 24 month contracts)

The BlackBerry^® offer comes with a choice of handsets including the BlackBerry^® Pearl 8100 smartphone and the BlackBerry^® Curve 8300 smartphone.

BlackBerry^® Internet Service is the out-of-the-box service the allows you to be up and running in just a few simple steps, regardless of email account type and without IT support. It’s the easiest way for individuals or small businesses to start using BlackBerry^® functionality.

BlackBerry^® push technology lets you receive your email effortlessly because messages are automatically pushed to your device.

This offer ends offer ends on 30^th June 2008.