Research firm ABI just released a new mobile cloud computing report predicting that there will be nearly one billion end users accessing the “mobile cloud” by 2014. I tend to be a skeptic when it comes to analyst reports. After all, if they don’t predict billion-dollar markets, no one will buy their reports.

That said, this report isn’t just hype. First off, the mobile cloud is already taking off from an application perspective.

“Consumers are very interested in the cloud. They just don’t think of it in those terms,” said Dana Gardner, president and principal analyst, Interarbor Solutions. “The iPhone App store and even iTunes are cloud offerings. Apple is one of biggest cloud providers, even if it doesn’t refer to itself as a cloud company.”

Secondly, the device driving mobile cloud adoption, the smartphone, is a gadget everyone loves. Mark Beccue, an analyst with ABI Research, said: “Consumers are waking up to the idea of mobile apps. The dilemma is that they’re limited to smartphones, which don’t have the processing power and data storage capabilities to make the applications appealing.”

Despite all the hype about next-generation Blackberries and iPhones, ownership of these devices is far from saturation. The high cost of the handsets coupled with expensive data plans is keeping smart phones on the periphery of the mobile phone market – for now.

Beccue estimates that smartphone penetration stands at about 19% today in the U.S., although ABI expects it to grow to 40% or so in five years. Feature phones – basically lower-tier phones with fewer computing capabilities – still rule the day.

Feature phones may have a browser and, say, some gaming, but they’re not mini-computers. The wrinkle here is the browser. Many feature phones do indeed have a fairly decent one, and this could be one way the mobile cloud grows on the cheap.

The browser is already being sized up as an OS and desktop alternative, so as more applications become truly cloud driven – protecting constrained devices from processing and storage requirements – even feature phones could become more and more cloud compatible.

Moving from Consumers to the Enterprise and back to Consumers
When you shift your focus away from consumers, the market is much less advanced. Enterprises are interested in mobile applications delivered via the cloud, but few have adopted the requisite technologies.

Get the full story here at Datamation.com.