I should expand on that a little.There is a generally held...

I should expand on that a little.
There is a generally held concensus that leveraging form a smart card base such as the one erg enjoys is not as probable as has been envisaged in the past.
But- mobile payments are NOT being adopted and expansion is not progressing as so many anticipated.
Again the business case is NOT convincing. Therefor the winners remain the companies that deliver systems that issue smart cards into as many pockets as possible.NOW!!
For all of its faults erg has and is continuing to increase its critical mass.
Yeah mobile commerce is very sexy and is definitely the way of the future. But the major telcos are not deploying tap and go payments on a broad scale because it is too early and therefor far to risky.Too early because all participants need to form a jv. To do so is a gargantuan task.
The bottom line here has remained from at least a decade ago-Transit is the killer application. Why? because it is out there and is many years ahead of its immediate opposition.
The proponents of mobile tap and go will offer a transit component that is obvious but how many years away is that?
Problem for erg is developing or at least providing a strategy that transit authorities accept and are willing to invest in.
The transit authorities are more interested in encouraging the private sector to finance the commercial applications. But it is too early for anything but small scale trials.The questions here are numerous and open to debate. When will we see some kind of concensus?
What the industry needs is to see a successful system to provide incentives for investment and therefor change.
It is early days but imho transit has well and truly stolen the march-the $64 million question is can erg profit from it??

cheers,
walt.