What Do Business Executives and Asian Teens Have In Common?

They’re two coveted demographics when it comes to mobile technology.

Mobile devices’ capabilities are rapidly expanding to become fully functional clients. Wireless networks are penetrating further into countries like India and South Africa. BCC Research recently announced that it estimates the global wireless market will be worth $88.9 billion by 2011. Is it any wonder that leading infrastructure providers are betting big on mobile?

Intel, for example, has invested heavily to stake out the market in Wi-Max and Wi-Fi radios for computers.

[Intel Executive VP Sean Maloney] is almost obsessed with another story - the emerging development of a whole new type of super-mini-PC he expects will be key to Intel’s growth over the next five years. This is partly because of the growing importance of emerging markets like Brazil, China and India. … “I have two targets. An Asian woman 18-20 - how will we get her to carry it in her handbag? And the other is a 14-year-old kid. We need to get kids using notebook computers all over the world.” (CNN)

Maloney’s comments confirm what many of us already know: the “18 year old Asian woman” demographic actually drives a great deal of technological innovation, and for good reason. Young consumers will readily try out new technologies, and they offer real potential for long-term brand loyalty.

However, the market for cutting-edge mobile technology — especially when you’re talking about phones and small form factor PCs — is a lot bigger than Generation Y. Take enterprise business users. They may require more development on the usability and reliability side than teenage gadget hounds, but the fact remains that the enterprise is a large and obvious market for small mobile devices.

As this base of enterprise users grows, businesses will need more ways to manage the massive amounts of data streaming to and from these devices. And as business users rely more on their phones and mini PCs in their regular workday, it will only become more important to protect that information from theft, loss, or hacking. PC Blade solutions can form a natural component of a comprehensive mobile business strategy. The back-end hardware and the connection brokering software can work across devices, across platforms, across technologies. All they need is a client device — and those are getting better all the time.