Prosumerization of Mobile Service Provision: A Conceptual Approach

Mobile Services

Services are a special kind of added value that is generated by a business. Its main characteristics are that they are nonphysical and intanguable in the dimensions output potential, process execution and process result (Vargo & Lusch, 2004). In the context of this paper, we concentrate on IT based services. These are services that are provided or solely operated by computer systems and where the access is only possible via IT (Sahai, Machiraju, & Wurster, 2000). Such services are nowadays widespread and the majority of information-related services belong to this category.

Mobile services are services that are accessed by mobile devices. They represent a specialization of IT-based services, i.e., the main criterion of such mobile services is mobility, both in regards of the service access/invocation and of the service provision/usage. However, mobility has strong implications on the properties of mobile services, which are diverging from classical IT-based ones (Kaasinen, 2003; Pagani, 2004):

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  Portability: Mobile services can be accessed independent from a specific location. Moreover the user can move while using a mobile service.

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  Always-on: Users usually rarely turn off their mobile device. In consequence, they keep always online and can potentially keep using mobile services timely infinitely.

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  Localization: Mobile service can include the location of the user into their processing. So mobile service can be location-aware and –specific.

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  Personalization: Mobile devices are usually not shared. Therefore mobile services can directly identify the individual user and adapt their offer depending on the profiled preferences and needs.

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  Limited capabilities: Since the mobile devices are used to access and utilize the mobile services, these are limited in the resources they request (e.g., bandwidth, screen, keyboard, …).

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  Security: Mobile services are usually utilized in a more open environment in contrast to stationary services. This puts special requirements to secure them.

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  Routing: Often, mobile devices have routing capabilities. These can be utilized in the service provision, e.g., to navigate the user to a specific location.