Context-aware computing is going to be huge

That's the word, according to Gartner. The analyst believes thre are likely to be more than 100 million subscribers per provider (assuming two main centres) within three years. Anne Lapkin, research vice president at Gartner explains that the analyst defines context-aware computing as "leveraging information about the end user to improve the quality of the interaction". She expects new context-enriched services to harness location, presence, social attributes "and other environmental information" to anticipate an end user's immediate needs – thus offering more-sophisticated functions. "Although the rudiments of context-aware computing have been around for some time, it is a disruptive technology that has the potential to be a real game changer, in terms of competitive advantage," insists Lapkin. "Initial implementations are already in play, and early adopters will find it easier to implement more-sophisticated services in the future," she adds. However, she reckons that the real promise of context-aware computing will only be fully realised when context information from multiple sources and multiple applications can be used simultaneously—and also when trust and privacy issues are addressed. That said, she also makes the point that web vendors are well positioned to become context providers, "as they typically have large populations of users about whom they collect a significant amount of context information". She explains that they will be able to re-purpose some of their technology (for example, instant messaging and social networking), "but will need to extend their capabilities to be more context-aware". Gartner believes that any web vendor that does not become a context provider risks handing over effective customer ownership to someone else – with a significant impact on their mobile and existing web businesses.