418    International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development Online ISSN: 2349-4182 Print ISSN: 2349-5979 www.allsubjectjournal.com Volume 2; Issue 11; November 2015; Page No. 418-424 M-Government adoption and diffusion: A case study of sultanate of Oman Muatasim Al Salmi, Norlena Hasnan School of Technology, Management and Logistics (STML), Universiti Utara Malaysia Sintok, Kedah Darul Aman, Malaysia Abstract This paper reviews mobile government (m-Government or m-Gov.) adoption and diffusion factors in one of the developing countries which is Sultanate of Oman. M-Gov. is viewed as a new class of e-Government or e-Gov. applications and it refer to any transaction via mobile technologies, such as laptops, smart phones or personal digital assistants (PDAs) with the most significant features of mobility and portability. The mobile technologies ubiquitous dimension provides means of accessing services anywhere, anytime and on the move. Thus, advanced wireless interface technologies especially in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The paper examines previous literatures and illustrate different obstacles faces the adoption and diffusion of m-Gov. Furthermore, drawing the distinction between technical and non-technical barriers. Then ICT sector and the current available m-Gov. initiatives in Oman setting up the mobile different services and aimed to understand the key factors to adoption and diffusion of these services through SWOT analysis and TOWS matrix. Keywords: ICT, EGDI, IDI, e-Gov., m-Gov., KI, II, KBE, EIR, KEI, SWOT, TOWS 1. Introduction Every government is seeking to provide the best services to its country to achieve efficiency and accepted performance. This goal could be achieved by improving the service performance of the entire sectors in society. Billions of dollars was invested by governments in order to undertake their first step towards implementing the e-Gov. project and specially implementing the best methodology of all attached and correlated electronic- based services to it like: e-payment, website, e-system, e- application…etc. Hence, they will permit new channels of interaction and communication between different government sectors and between government and business organizations. This interaction will lead to improvement in government performance and efficiency while interacting with citizens which will enhance government-citizens relationship. Nowadays, mobile phones are no longer used for voice communication only especially after introducing the smart phones but are a convenient and very powerful way of connecting to the Internet and are used for other services like transferring data, exchanging e-mails, and doing different small scale business transactions (Sadeh, 2002). Mobile phone penetration in general is well used and with higher rate than home PCs usage in different countries and it seems that the trend will continue to get higher (Varshney, 2000). These mobile or wireless devices are widely used worldwide not only by developed countries but also commonly used by many other developing nations like Oman. Mobiles technologies with the introduction of internet and specifically ICT enabled mobile phones, PDA’s, WiFi and wireless networks to offer their users enjoyment of all the benefits of telephones, information accessing, text messaging. This paper would review the development methodologies used in m-Gov. construction in Sultanate of Oman which is showing tremendous developments in all sectors in e-Gov. generally and m-Gov. specifically. This review through the identification of the major issues and aspects in implementing its initiatives in Oman. Moreover, some major challenges in such performance would be better identified and strategically considered using important methodologies like SWOT analysis and checked using TOWS matrix. Therefrom, available challenges with faced criteria along with best opportunities to be captured would be listed with related suggestions and recommendations. 1.1 E-Gov. and m-Gov. relationship E-Gov. is defined variously, and the vast majority of definitions focus on the role of ICT in facilitating the public services delivery to government, companies and citizens (Choudrie et al., 2004; OCED, 2003). However, Bassara et al. (2005) define m-Gov. as “the use of all kinds of wireless and mobile technologies, applications and devices for improving services delivery to the parties involved in e-Gov. including citizens, businesses and all government units” (Al-Hadidi and Rezgui, 2014, p 93). From the above, it was established that in general m-Gov. is considered as a complimentary sub-set of e-Gov. (Kushchu and Kuscu, 2003). Furthermore, most researchers believe that e- Gov. is counted as the cornerstone for m-Gov. (Goldstuck, 2003; Scholl, 2005). Therefore, the differences between these two deliveries of public services relate to the access and delivery means (Kushchu and Kuscu, 2003). E-Gov. provides different services through wired networks and PCs with interactive web applications. However, after the development of mobile PCs with different devices and accessories attached to it, e-Gov. is not becoming sufficient and enough. The value of m-Gov. comes from its applications capabilities that supports mobility of the citizens, businesses and internal governments operations. Whereas, some of the typical challenges and barriers faced by e-Gov. are naturally shared by the m-Gov. efforts (Kushchu and Kuscu, 2003). 1.2 M-Gov. adoption and diffusion barriers Although data communications, ICT infrastructure and different system applications became very attractive to many citizens and business users (Kushchu and Kuscu, 2003) but they