Mobile data implementation will slow this year, according to a new report from In-Stat.

The market researcher expects 44 percent revenue growth for mobile business applications for 2007 to 2008 versus 50 percent for 2006 to 2007. The growth is still good, but the difference may be attributed to the widening gap between what marketing decision makers say they will do and what they actually implement.

"The growth this year continues to be for horizontal applications: wireless email, calendaring, contact database," said Bill Hughes, analyst at In-Stat, Scottsdale, AZ.

"In 2007, we approached near over 90 percent penetration of at least one employee using such applications within a business," he said. "That is not such a big hurdle among large enterprises, but this penetration was across all business sizes, and once any user is within an organization, it shows that others can quickly follow. Most of the growth in the near future is for more users for these applications."

Research also showed that smartphone usage among U.S. businesses grew 34 percent between 2006 and 2007.

And the horizontal applications -- wireless email, wireless online access, wireless instant messaging and personal information management -- gained highest penetration due to their ease of implementation over vertical market applications.

The results were reported in In-Stat's "Wireless Data in the Enterprise 2007: Avoiding a CDPD Reprise" report.

What was significant in Mr. Hughes' survey was that vertical applications, such as automating an entire sales force, didn't show a statistically significant increase from 2006 to 2007.

"My conclusion is that 2007 was a year of great growth for horizontal applications, but a disappointment for vertical market apps," Mr. Hughes said. "My advice for marketers of vertical mobile data applications is to not be discouraged by the results in 2007. The vertical market apps have very high value, and the IT managers are still planning to implement them.

"My advice for marketers of horizontal applications is that 2008 will continue to be a good year, perhaps even better than the recent years," he said. "Now that at least one person is familiar with the benefits of mobile data, the demand for these benefits will spread virally through the organization."