Marketing strategies created on such assumptions as "if you build it they will come" or if there are going to be 1 billion cell phones in the world, we should have a cell phone product doesn’t always work. Thus when Cognos announced Cognos 8 Go!, it left me wondering if the world needs or wants BI on their cell phone, even if the name has an exclamation point in it. Yes, all the usual mobile clichés are in place Marketing strategies created on such assumptions as “if you build it they will come” or if there are going to be 1 billion cell phones in the world, we should have a cell phone product doesn’t always work.Thus when Cognos announced Cognos 8 Go!, it left me wondering if the world needs or wants BI on their cell phone, even if the name has an exclamation point in it.Yes, all the usual mobile clichés are in place. The software automatically reformats reports for various types of devices and it has “an intuitive interface.” But when senior analyst with Nucleus Research David O’Connel is quoted as saying, “basically, the more platforms you can put BI on, the more people you have adopting it,” it sounds a bit over simplistic to my marketing years.The Go! Product will be available for both Symbian and Windows Mobile 6 platforms but not yet for the iPhone. Well, that is probably a smart move. Judging from the people I’ve met who use an iPhone BI is probably the last thing on their mind. Of course Cognos counters the argument that BI on a mobile device is not needed with a customer, MTD Products, who says the ability to deliver such things as a daily sales and shipment information “in a convenient easily consumable format” will make this a useful product. Yes, I suppose as Cognos says that for executives who require “mission-critical performance information delivered directly to their mobile workforce,” this is a solution. They have a point but I think it is short-lived. My guess is we are going to see something different develop on mobile platforms in the near future. Let’s say that the average business person uses at least six or more different applications. Those bleeding edge companies that decide to put all of the mission critical stuff on mobile devices will soon discover it just doesn’t work, either from a UI proposition or from a real estate and memory usage aspect. So, instead, what we will see develop is a single mobile environment, a single mobile window, if you will, lower case W please, in which information can be sent to or accessed from. One window, one view, all critical information goes into that pot. In a sense it is like the concept of unified communications but instead of a single view of all your messages, it gives you a single view of all your data. Technology Industry