The mobile community has just spent the week together in Barcelona. I’m just back having survived the biggest event to support the mobile community – the GSMA Mobile World Congress #MWC2014. Walking the floor, the message was clear – at the heart of mobility is data and instant data gratification.

Instant gratification all started with fast food, ‘fad’ diets, microwaveable meals and the instant retail credit card at the cash register. These brands and products have permeated our society, and so today, instant gratification isn’t just a desire anymore, it’s an expectation. Moreover, the rapid spread of the Internet and mobile device adoption has given rise to a new gratification – instant DATA gratification. As data via web and mobile applications become increasingly intertwined in the way we live our lives, our expectations for ever-increasing immediacy are persistently fuelled. While there are things in life worth waiting for, data is not one. Data that you can action, immediately, is transforming our lives and how we interact with organizations.

These ideas were echoed throughout the exhibition, and, I think, accurately articulated in a Mobile World Daily article discussing how today’s end users expect their services to be social, immediate and to reflect their multiple, daily life personas, without any restrictions as to when and how to consume these services. They demand real-time interaction and have zero tolerance for service failure and it is up to communication services providers to meet this challenge.

It is clear that the rapid spread of the Internet and mobile devices, coupled with a lack of patience, has increased our expectation for data immediacy. Organizations are battling to consistently stay ahead of the competition and as technology fuels our need for instant data gratification, anything less than instant is just slow and irritating.

We all expect instant data via our web and mobile applications so what capabilities do developers need to launch these successful apps? We believe there are three capabilities speed and performance, efficiency and scale.