Until recently, there hasn't been as much demand in the United States for multimedia mobile services, so the carriers haven't been as quick to upgrade networks and service offerings.

Businesses have also been lukewarm to partnering with the mobile operators. "In the U.S., enterprises hate the carriers," says Rizzo. "They think that the wireless carriers and land line carriers are nothing more than dumb pipes."

But change is on the horizon. Early this year, Verizon Wireless launched its EV-DO (or Evolution-Data Optimized) 3G service, which delivers data and multimedia services at much faster speeds than before. Other wireless carriers have followed suit and increased their network capabilities (although not to all areas of the country). According to Rizzo, there's been a noticeable uptake in demand for EV-DO-enabled services from consumers but also from enterprises.

But even with all of the latest bells and whistles, "dead zones" in U.S. mobile coverage areas and dropped calls are still pervasive. "It's not that Americans are less mobile than anyone else," explains Nielsen. "But even now, with just making a cell phone call, we don't have a stable resource. And that one thing explains it all."

Your Customers They Are a-Changin'
Athough the song "The Times They Are a-Changin'" was written for the generation on its way out of corporate America right now, it also applies to the generation making its way in. And nowhere is there more demand for faster, better and cheaper mobile services than with the millennial generation (those born between 1977 and 1994) now banging on business's front door.

"The rate of mobile adoption [among millennials] has been nothing short of spectacular," says Rizzo. "They're demanding that enterprises provide a mobile capability."

He describes the technological needs of this group as a "mobilized social networking environment." Their world is one of constant connection (IM, voice, text messaging, Bluetooth and location-based technologies), lots of sharing of documents and photos, as well as significant end user adoption of services like mobile banking (all of which give security-conscious CIOs a huge migraine).

Another emerging area receiving a lot of attention by millennials is unified messaging, which means that any handheld device can act as a universal inbox for all communications: wire line and wireless voice mail, e-mail, IM, text messaging, and location-based services. With this new generation of office workers, unified messaging will be viral in its spread, says Richard LeVine, a senior manager at Accenture. "It's pointless to know how you send or receive the message; it's more important just to know that they got it."