THE INFORMATION REVOLUTION IS ABORNING:

[B]en Evans, an analyst at Andreessen's imaginatively named firm Andreessen Horowitz, has produced a presentation specifically on mobile. Its title? "Mobile is eating the world."

Mobile devices are a transformative force, Evans argues. It's not just that there are more devices now than there ever were. It's also that these devices are fundamentally personal, and that means that the technology industry is involved in every aspect of our lives. And these devices have more capabilities than previous devices: GPS, cameras (plural), accelerometer, health sensor, integrated payments, and so on -- your PC doesn't have that. Each of these new capacities, multiplied by four billion devices, represents a massive business opportunity just by itself. For example, many think wearable devices that can sense your body and monitor your health will change the health-care industry -- which makes up nearly one-fifth of the U.S. economy.

Of course, everyone knows that mobile is a big deal and that everyone has smartphones, or will have smartphones soon. But this conventional wisdom, Evans argues, understates the magnitude of the opportunity. These factors -- quantity, ubiquity, increased capability -- don't add up, they multiply.

Implicitly, Evans is drawing on the work of Carlota Perez, an innovation scholar, who points out that when there is a technology paradigm shift, the first phase of the shift is rolling out the technology itself, but the next phase is when the technology changes the other sectors of the economy.

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