Mobile Computing – The next big thing in technology

By Abhinav Singh

Mobile technology is the next biggest trend in technology. With the vision of bringing computer like processing power, storage and access to consumer’s palms, mobile technology is swiftly evolving into a big industry. Mobile phone operators whether GSM or CDMA, are providing faster and advanced services at affordable prices to the consumers, whereas, mobile phone manufacturing companies are doing lot of research in enhancing their devices to bring in different services on a single device. Due to this immense popularity of mobile computing, it unfolds new areas of job opportunities for individuals. Let us divide the different job areas into two broad categories: Hardware and Software.

 We start our discussion with hardware based career opportunities provided by Mobile computing.

Mobile Hardware engineers:

Mobile hardware engineering involves fixing hardware based issues that may arise in a mobile device due to hardware failures. Mobile hardware engineers have the ability to identify failing hardware and other components and to replace them so that it works properly in conjunction with other peripheral hardware.

Requirements and courses: To pursue a career in this domain, you should possess a basic understanding of hardware and integrated circuits. Some popular institutes offering short and long term diploma in mobile hardware engineering are:

• Jetking
• APTECH

Tower Installation and Maintenance Engineer:

This domain involves setting up and maintaining mobile towers that form the crux of setting up a network coverage. An individual should be fully aware of different mobile network technologies like GSM, CDMA, 3G etc.

VLSI design:

The first two areas we discussed require less technical expertise. But working in core areas of mobile hardware technology requires a deeper understanding of several concepts like networking, integrated circuits, chip design, electronics etc. Very large scale integration or VLSI is the crux of designing and integrating different mobile components into a single unit. VLSI engineers face lot of challenges as they have to integrate loads of features into a small hand held device. This is the reason why this domain requires very specialised and skilled people.

Courses: VLSI design is covered extensively as a mainstream subject of Bachelors in Electronics Engineering. Furthermore, specialisation can be gained by pursuing Masters degree in VLSI design.

Let us now move to some software based career opportunities in mobile computing world.

Mobile Platform development:

Mobile platform development is the heart of mobile development which involves developing a single operating system for the mobile devices that can integrate its various hardware and make them function as a single unit. Some popular examples include Android, iOS etc. Mobile platform development does not necessarily involve building the complete operating system from scratch, but it also involves extending the existing platforms to work in accordance with new hardwares and controls.

Courses: Bachelors in IT/Computer science, Masters in Mobile Technology, Diploma in Mobile technology.

Mobile Applications development (Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows):

With the increase in popularity of smartphones, mobile applications became an integral part of everyone’s life. Mobile apps have played a big role in revolutionising smart phones. On an average, a single smart phone has minimum 24 apps installed on it. Apps can be catagorised under different catagories like games, utility, system, communication etc. A point to note here is that applications are platform specific. For example, an Android app cannot work directly on an iOS device. This is the reason why application development requires specialised platform developers like Android app developers, Blackberry app developers etc.

Courses and institutes: Geek Mentors is a Noida based institute that offers classroom program to train people on all popular mobile platforms. The company has also developed several popular apps thus providing hands-on experience to its students.

NIIT offers specialised certificate courses for Android and iOS development.

Mobile Security:

Security is now a major aspect wherever communication is involved. Since most of the critical operations involving bank transactions, online payments, shopping etc are now present on mobile phones, a proper security medium is essential to make these transactions authentic and safe. Mobile security is a less explored domain in the current scenario and mostly self-motivated professionals are found in this domain.

Mobile Application testing:

Just like computer software requires rigorous testing, similarly mobile applications require a testing phase to ensure smooth working with the platform and prevent hardware failure. This requires specialised professionals who have sufficient experience in platform testing.

About the author:

Abhinav singh, a shiksha expert is the author of “Metasploit penetration testing cookbook” , a book dealing with Metasploit and penetration testing. He is also a contributor of SecurityXploded community. Abhinav’s work has been quoted in several portals and technology magazines.