Developing and implementing a mobile business strategy should be a key priority for IT directors during 2001, according to Gartner.

The analyst firm believes that the majority of companies are still unprepared for the mobile explosion despite confident predictions that mobile devices will be the favoured access point for internet services from 2002 onwards.

Nigel Deighton, a research director at Gartner, believes that companies must investigate both internal business applications plus external business-to-business and business-to-consumer opportunities.

"Every ecommerce company is going to have to have a mobile ecommerce strategy because mobility is the way business is going," he said.

"Internal applications that give your own staff mobile access are where you will see the quickest return on investment. However, you must understand the needs of different user communities in the business, and the impact of mobile technologies on existing applications and architecture," he explained.

"Now is the time to understand what the technologies can do, their limitations and potential. Companies must think about what the consumer needs. Wap has so far failed to deliver because the gain has not outweighed the pain," he added.

Deighton will brief delegates at Gartner's Spring Symposium in Florence this week on how to make the most of mobile business opportunities. Delegates will also hear presentations on the importance of location-sensing services, online communities and data mining.

Alexander Linden, a research director at Gartner, predicts that by 2005 businesses will be capturing 30 times more data about their customers than they did last year and from a variety of sources.

"New interactive platforms will not change the nature of data mining, but they will instead create new dynamics, complexities and possibilities. They offer a great environment for experimenting with unique ways of sensing consumer interest and behaviour," he said.

This is an edited version of a story to be published in the 29 March issue of Computing