IBM has launched a new initiative aimed at improving the capabilities of mobile devices. The firm said that it intended to add features and functions to devices in a bid to capitalise on their use for education, commerce and communication purposes.

The results of the research, which will be carried out in IBM's Indian Research Laboratory, will be solutions aimed squarely at those individuals that have shunned the desktop PC, and instead interact with the internet and web-based services using their mobile phone, or similar devices.

"The world is entering the 'Era of the Mobile Web.' In many countries, the mobile phone has become an electronic wallet, the window to the World Wide Web, an education device and more, and globally, mobile devices outnumber PCs, credit cards, and TVs," said Dr. Daniel Dias, director, IBM India Research laboratory. "Today, we are launching projects that will make a mobile device an even easier to use than the PC, allowing you to do everything you can with a PC and much more."

Planned activities include projects involving voice-enabled shopping, real-time communication and translation between different languages, and the porting of applications to any mobile device.

IBM predicts that the number of mobile web users is to grow by 191 per cent in the next three years, and should reach one billion. It added, "This proliferation of mobile devices and mobile Web users signals an incredibly lucrative growth opportunity for businesses."