Adopting M-government services in Oman: Challenges and opportunities

Most of the countries around the world are working to embrace the information age. Challenges to the implementation of EGovernment vary, and countries vary in their ways of overcoming these barriers. Each society has different needs and priorities, and the challenges in developed countries may differ from those in developing countries therefore, the objectives and strategies designed by a government in order to ensure a successful EGovernment implementation will also differ. This paper aims to highlight experience of implementing m-services in one of the developing countries i.e. Oman. Internet penetration in most developing countries is still low as oppose to mobiles dissemination. In Oman and despite the government plans and strategies to enhance Internet diffusion, Internet subscribers comprised about 2.5% of the general population in 2005. In contrast, the number of mobile holders increased substantially since the launch of these services in 1996. Prepaid mobile services and SMS were introduced in 2001 and both are currently popular with subscribers. Such fine appeal influenced many government organizations to go mobile with their services. From simple push m-services like SMS notifications to more sophisticated pull mservices such as reserving and paying for a car parking via SMS. This paper discusses the current m-government services in Oman aiming to understand the success and failure factors. It also investigates the possibilities of m-government to be a driving force for e-government adoption in Oman. It was clear that factors such as privacy, security and trust have wide impact on m-government adoption. In addition, the absence of 3G network constraints the number, kinds and quality of mservices to be developed.