In a panel session at the M-commerce World event in London earlier this month I played resident Grinch, downplaying any positive predictions about how big a role handheld devices will play in online commerce.
I didn't mean to sound so negative. It's just that before backing a horse, it's wise to study the form  and a quick glance is all that is needed to suggest that it is time for IT to pass rather than play at this juncture.
The backers of m-commerce predict rapid progress for the technology and show charts with hockey-stick-shaped growth curves. As an example, they might suggest that a store in Bluewater with a special offer on aged whisky, knowing you're a big fan and wandering along nearby, can alert you through your smartphone that it's your lucky day. But there's not a lot of evidence that that sort of intelligent, location-aware service will arrive soon.
Even ignoring the privacy debate and fears that location-aware is a licence to spam, there is the issue of marketing being essentially touchy-feely. What works on a 17in screen might not work in the mobile world of slow connections and tiny displays.
And what are the killer applications that will drive m-commerce? Probably not the business-to-consumer winners of the desktop such as porn, books and CDs, all of which will struggle to appeal on the first-generation input and display technologies on smartphones.
Some say we are too obsessed with the consumer and that the real benefit of m-commerce will, like the fixed Net, be for business-to-business. There, the big success will be in sending information to and from field workers for sales, inventory and so on. Again though, the relationships between the device makers, the software developers and systems integrators are infant and delicate.
Bluetooth local wireless technology looks like being a rushed, just-good-enough job. But the wheels are turning slowly for broadband and always-on links such as GPRS and UMTS and there is little evidence of the partnerships needed for the convergence of communications and computing.
No matter how many times people use the term 'convergence' or how close communications and computing come in terms of operating spheres, they remain Yin and Yang, an opposed pair incapable of fusion. Think of the biggest names in computing: IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Compaq. Then recite the biggest names in telephony: AT&T, BT, NTT and so on. Except in the most token alliances, the relationships between the two groups are negligible.
So, if the partnering isn't there, the technology is nascent and the usability is an unknown, why is the band being struck up for m-commerce? The truth is that IT and telecoms firms are desperate for a new wave of revenue. The IT firms are swimming in profit warnings and trying desperately to avoid the conclusion that there really is a slowdown in IT spending. Telecoms firms need a Next Big Thing because the money markets are getting itchy about the billions invested in 3G licences.
All of this is not to say that m-commerce does not have a future. I can imagine a good point-and-click mobile version of the Tesco.com shopping list, and B2B a step up from today's dependence on voice and SMS messaging will have some modest utility. But m-commerce isn't near the top of IT spending priorities and I don't expect it to appear there for a few years yet.
