Here Are 4 Brand Leaders' Mobile Predictions

Allegion Futurist, Rob Martens: When you look at trends that are impacting technology going forward, many of them are based on connecting things that historically haven’t been connected, such as the Internet of Things. And there are some serious megatrends at work there. Sensors are more available and less expensive than they’ve ever been, and you can see that trending down in terms of their cost. All of the data that those sensors generate is less expensive to transition through the pipes than it has ever been before, and that trend is continuing down. And then the actual tools that are used historically to make dirty data into usable, clean, viable information for people to use are more accessible and less expensive than they’ve ever been. It’s driving a whole new generation of IoT solutions, even past what we started with just a couple of years ago.

AT&T Indiana’s President, Bill Soards: One of the things that's apparent to me is that the speed and advancements of wireless networks are accelerating so fast. There was a day not too long ago when many of us thought Nirvana would be the day where we all have fiber directly to our house. I think there's a lot of industry analysts and industry leaders that are now seeing the capabilities of wireless networks and are beginning to wonder how is this going to be adopted. We expect 5G to be a huge game changer. Ultimately, it’s to help us connect more devices faster to enable lower latency. And I think one of the big differentiators with 5G is the billions of new devices that are going to be connected to the wireless network–cars and monitors and sensors and cameras–your imagination can run wild with the multitude of different devices that are increasingly going to be connected. We always hear about the hypothetical refrigerator and dishwasher and things in our homes that are going to be connected, and those things are becoming reality in front of our eyes. Ten years from now, we may be on 6G or 7G by then. And I can't even wrap my head around something faster than 5G! So I'm excited to see that come to life.

Mobivity’s SVP of Product Marketing, Dave Galante: We're partnering very closely with Google to build out the next generation of messaging, which is called Rich Communication Services (RCS). And what's really interesting about RCS is that it's actually an experience that lives inside the native messaging app on your phone. So for example, Android has that built-in messaging app that you have on every single Android device, and that will now actually support RCS. So that means I could have a transactional or marketing message come into the phone and I could take that kind of marketing message that comes in through the traditional SMS channel with RCS and then convert that to a purchase right within the messaging app. Customers can do everything from customizing the order to actually placing it, all without ever downloading a native app.

DemandJump’s Chief Strategy Officer, Shawn Schwegman: I think it's going to be a device explosion. It's really going to be a Minority Report sort of world. People have multiple different devices–a laptop, tablet, mobile phone, and typically one or two wearables. So I think you’re going to see more of that, and less dependency on any one device. And as marketers, we have to be everywhere.