LOCATION-RELATED SERVICES FOR MOBILE COMMERCE – AN ANALYSIS OF THE POTENTIALS FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES

This article analyses the economic potential of mobility technologies away from the present discussion about “UMTS-killer applications”. The starting point for this is the changing economic importance of “location ” in a mobile economy and the possibilities of implementing new services – namely Location-Related Services (LRS). Based on an economic classification scheme with two different types of mobility, the question of which costs have to be considered when realizing location-related services is investigated. We put forward the argument that the changing importance of location through mobility opens new opportunities for mobile commerce, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), because location itself traditionally plays an important role in their business strategies