Mobile (including communications, commerce, platforms, and software and applications) comes a close second to cloud computing in its potential to shake up consumer and enterprise markets, a survey of 668 global technology executives, conducted by KPMG, has found. 

Smartphones and tablets lead as top tech breakthroughs, followed by cloud computing and cloud storage. In fact, mobility and cloud are so closely associated they might be seen as two parts of a single new computing architecture. 

What is truly transformational is the combination of the mobile Internet connected to the cloud as an enabler of new business models, KPMG says. 

When it comes to their home country, respondents feel that mobile device manufacturers (such as Apple) outrank other types of businesses for tech innovation leadership.

Roughly a third of respondents say that Internet companies are the emerging champions in the fast-developing mobile commerce ecosystem.

These trends are led by the advanced mobile communications markets of Japan and Korea, big and growing mobile bases in China and India, and the fast uptake of next-generation mobile standards around the globe.

More than half of respondents point to the cloud (SaaS, IaaS and PaaS) as the next indispensable consumer technology and the greatest driver of business transformation. Smartphones and tablets lead as top technology breakthroughs that will result in the biggest business transformation for the time being.

Nearly half (44 percent) forecast mobile as the next indispensable consumer technology while more than one-third (36 percent) predict mobile will be the leading game-changer in the enterprise market. Of the four mobile sub-categories, mobile communications leads the pack.

Select geographic markets favor mobile over the cloud as the top change agent. In Israel, for instance, 64 percent believe mobile will lead the next generation of consumer technologies while 58 percent feel the same way about the enterprise market. 

Additionally, in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region (EMEA), 54 percent foresee mobile as the most likely technology to shake up consumer markets in the next three years.

In one more measure of mobile’s impact, smart phones and tablets lead as the next technology breakthrough that will provoke the greatest business transformation four years from now (according to 22 percent of respondents), followed by cloud and storage, at 18 percent.