Among the biggest strategic questions facing eBusiness & Channel Strategy executives are how to make use of the growing potential of the mobile channel, how to integrate mobile phones into their company's multi-channel strategy, and how to meet customers' rising expectations for mobile services.

We have argued that, for most companies, mobile's time has come. Every company needs to have a mobile strategy in place, even if that strategy is to wait until specific things happen before making serious investments.

Most of the eBusiness & Channel Strategy executives that we work with are either directly responsible for, or closely involved in, their company's mobile strategy.  So we would like your perspective -- and we'd like to help you benchmark your mobile strategy against that of your peers. 

We invite you to take part in a short survey about your company's mobile strategy, your objectives, the metrics you use and the challenges that you face. You can take part in the survey here.

• The survey takes less than 15 minutes to complete. 
• Individual responses will be kept strictly confidential and results only published in aggregate.

In return, we will give you a free executive summary of the survey results.

We're keen to get as wide a sample of industries and geographies as we can, so please feel free to forward this survey through your networks. If you are not familiar with your company’s mobile strategy, but know who is, please forward this survey to them.

I look forward to your perspectives. Thank you in advance for your time.

Today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Microsoft unveiled the next version of its mobile phone software, Windows Phone 7 Series. The name alone is noteworthy because:

I recently returned from a trip to the UAE (Dubai mostly) and Oman. While there I did a bit of research on my own - just talking to folks about how they use their cell phones and so forth. I also had the chance to interview the head of mobile banking services in EMEA for a large, global bank. More on how global banks are avoiding building new branches by offering mobile banking services in another post. 

First, I took the public bus from Dubai to Oman. The average income per family in Oman is far below that in the States - probably less than half. Gas and other utilities are cheap as is education and healthcare. That said, we know that cell phone usage has little to do with income. One of the first things I noticed is how many of the men had at least two cell phones. My initial hypothesis was a work phone and a personal phone. I was soon corrected by my guide who drove me  up to Jebel Shams. In a country where men can have more than one wife, apparently more than one cell phone is necessary. My guide's father has five current wives, but has had nine all together. My guide had two cell phones and a lot more SIM cards. 

My guide was 37 years of age. He had four children and seemed to have an about average income. He worked in sales when he wasn't serving as a guide. He's probably easily one of the most sophisticated cell phone users I've ever met. His cell phone was his portable media player for both music and video. I was astonished by the number of videos he had sideloaded from YouTube. The ringtones were pretty much driving me crazy after about 15 hours in a car with him road tripping. He only had a couple of different ring tones and his phone rang a lot. 

HitFix launched their iPhone application at the beginning of last week. They basic service provides entertainment - movie, TV, performing arts - listings near where you are or where you live.  

I judge the quality of mobile services within the context of the Convenience Quotient. (See report). I define the benefits of mobile services as immediacy (value of having the information or service now), simplicity and context. This service does all three fairly well though I'd like to see it do more.

Immediacy - let's me see what is playing nearby and soon. Would love to see the application go beyond pure forms of entertainment like films and TV, but this is a starting place. I would have liked to see local festivals and street fairs ... or "Christmas Tree Lighting in GG Park," but I know this is hard. 

Simplicity - Let's me link to an area to purchase movie tickets from within the application. That seems basic, but it is not a no-brainer to get all of these partnerships lined up. If it could link to my DirectTV DVR service so I could record TV shows I find within the application, that would be cool. 

Context - uses my location/shows me what is nearby.

They also do well to help with discovery by promoting the iPhone application with two banner ads on their home screen. The link falls short though by simply connecting me to the Apple web site where I can download iTunes - it doesn't give me directions for finding the application within the App store or give me much of a description. 

Here's a screen shot: