North American M-Commerce adoption Impact of the technological environment: A comparative analysis to Western Europe and Japan

Abstract

This work focuses on the technological environment of M-Commerce, and highlights some technological reasons slowing the penetration of this technology in North America1. The purpose is to provide some closure and present a potential solution that would improve the North American M-Commerce adoption level. The determined research hypotheses are: (1) Lack of adequate government regulations; (2) Lack of adequate spectrum; (3) Lack of adequate technologies; (4) Lack of adequate standardization process. An analysis and a comparison of these variables in the respective poles---Western Europe, Japan, North America---using their respective technology---GSM, I-Mode, CDMA is conducted. More specifically this in-depth comparative analysis helps determine if and how these variables impact the QoS2 and therefore the M-Commerce adoption outcome. The lack of adequate spectrum and the lack of adequate standardization process, in North America show to be the primary reasons for the slow adoption of M-Commerce. Hence, the conclusion of this work proposes an alternative solution. This proposal provides a new revised model of the North American M-Commerce value chain. This model would eliminate the identified issues and increase the Quality of Service, as well as the customer's satisfaction, resulting in higher adoption level. Furthermore, this potential new strategy gives North America the opportunity to reposition itself.

1North America: We define North America by Canada and The United States. However throughout this work we often used cases and examples related to the United States. The reason being, that the United States is leading the wireless telecommunication in North America. 2QoS: Quality of Service