Mobiles make the grade

There's a heap of potential for businesses taking the mobile data route: streamlining business processes, reduced operating costs are just the beginning. But before rushing in, assessing the business case is a must.

When Terry Mosse-Robinson needed a new network when re-locating the Sydney-based head office of his expanding national courier business, Snapx, wireless was considered but the business case dictated a traditional wired Ethernet network.

“We’re not heading that way because our requirement is national and we’re not sure if Wi-Fi can deliver what we are missing [for productivity],” Mosse-Robinson said. “Obviously it delivers but we can’t see the big ticket item.”

Mosse-Robinson said hard wiring the new office was neither expensive nor difficult and the company’s current PCs are not Wi-Fi compliant. “To wire the office and put in another patch panel cost between $3000 and $4000 including labour and the telephone lines,” he said. “If wireless is cheaper then it must be a lot cheaper.”

As previously reported in Computerworld, (June 2, 2003) Snapx is no stranger to mobility as its drivers are equipped with PDAs that communicate jobs via GPRS. The company’s sales team also uses e-mail over GPRS.

“Speed isn’t an issue as it probably takes two to three seconds per communication,” Mosse-Robinson said. “And we’ve had no issues with reliability over [the past] two years. We’ll possibly look at 3G but GPRS is cost-effective.”

Now Mosse-Robinson is faced with a dilemma regarding which direction to take with his Symbol mobile devices.

“We’ve had great frustration with the devices which are no longer being manufactured so we are being forced to upgrade to a new model which is more expensive and has things we don’t need,” he said. “We will be switching to another device. We are testing the Falcon [brand] PDA which is half the price of the Symbol.”

Mosse-Robinson stressed that, if you are going to purchase a wireless device, “be careful and negotiate a long-term agreement”.

Overall, Mosse-Robinson’s message for wireless in the enterprise is that “it’s a timing issue”.

“These are developing technologies and there is a time to jump on board,” he said, adding that enterprises should goe for a wireless solution “when the technology is delivering enough ROI and can do what you want in the meantime.”

Mosse-Robinson said wireless must deliver at least 50 percent of what you want before considering it as a replacement to wired networks. Symbol Technologies’ wireless products business development manager Damian Stock, said the company is well positioned to offer enterprises mobility solutions for GPRS- or 802.11-based wireless networks.

“We have an architecture called the mobility solutions suite to centrally manage software, radio firmware, and the battery,” Stock said. “We can gather data about the device [remotely] as there shouldn’t be huge overhead with management across a LAN or WAN.

"It’s a tool needed by the enterprise, because as we get more PDAs out there we need more management on the device.”

Stock recommends that all data transmitted wirelessly be encrypted and also to consider more robust devices for field work.

“Smart phones provide access to basic data information but are not the best for scanner-based information and they are not ruggedized,” he said.

PalmOne’s CEO Todd Bradley said although Microsoft PocketPC-based mobile devices are gaining ground, Palm's business is growing again and will maintain a consumer and enterprise focus.

“I think you’ll see multiple things in the business marketplace,” Bradley told Computerworld. “There is a segment of the business market that will be very driven by a converged one-piece solution like the Trio that offers strong voice and data capabilities. However, we still see demand for wireless synchronization via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth for business applications that don’t need the always-on connectivity of GPRS.”

Bradley cited the pharmaceutical and health care industries as having applications that don’t require always-on access.

“It’s not always-on access that’s important but it’s the ability to simply gather information and provide a solution that has a good ROI and a low cost of ownership and support,” he said. “So we think you’re going to see both solutions broadly deployed over the short term.”

When asked if the rise of smart phones is likely to signal the death knell of the traditional PDA, Bradley said: “Despite the pundits, I don’t think [the standard PDA] is going away anytime soon. There will be lots of innovation around how you use the device. Anyone who’s saying that this industry is dead is not looking at all the focus we’ve put on creating relevant products.”

PalmOne’s own smart phone, the Trio, was recently certified by the three big Australian mobile carriers Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone. “The way enterprises can increase productivity from a connectivity standpoint is important,” Bradley said. “It’s inevitable that Nokia and Samsung will come into the smart phone space.”

Locally, PalmOne’s Asia Pacific vice president Paul Blinkhorn said the company is seeing “very strong” acceptance in the enterprise area. “One [example] is the Mirvac group that manages a lot of properties and the whole process of managing properties – including detecting problems and maintenance records – is now a function of recording - including photographs for the whole property management phase,” Blinkhorn said.

“The second is in the hospital environment. This started at Geelong Hospital (Victoria) and is extending out. That’s using the technology to record dosage levels and patient reaction to anaesthetics, particularly for people in the trainee environment. So this is the real-time collection and analysis and patient record-oriented.”

In addition to niche vertical applications, more mainstream office productivity tools are also being deployed by enterprises for “immediate” results, according to HP’s marketing development manager for commercial notebooks, Matt Dalton.

“Standard office collaboration and information tools are generally the first to be deployed by large enterprises,” Dalton said. “These include applications such as intranet, e-mail and instant messaging services, and it's these applications that offer the greatest immediate productivity benefits for businesses.”

Right job, right device

Selecting the right device means looking at the work it will be required to do. Dalton recommends PDAs for applications that do not require large amounts of text input, tablet PCs for applications that require note taking, and notebooks for the functionality of a desktop in a more mobile device. Moreover, Dalton does not believe the industry will converge on one type of mobile device, or that smart phones are likely to replace PDAs in the near future.

“Enhanced mobile networks are helping to increase network accessibility, allowing users to remain connected to a network while away from the office; however, users can also benefit from the latest-generation applications that include advanced synchronisation features to cope with 'offline' work,” he said. “These features allow a user to continue working when a network connection is not available and will automatically update their PC once they reconnect to the network.”

What's happening?

Regarding management of mobile devices, Dalton said current-generation management software, like Altiris, that is preloaded on some HP notebooks, can help manage mobile devices in any business.

“It performs tasks like recognising a device's connection state to help track equipment as well as provide urgent security updates that can be forced over any connection,” he said. “These management applications not only reduce the total cost of ownership to the business but also provide peace of mind to the IT manager.”

Vodafone’s future data marketing manager Declan O’Callaghan says that the “sweet spot” for enterprise mobility is Blackberry.

“Blackberry is now in 12 countries and is a near-bulletproof device for PIM (personal information manager) functionality,” O’Callaghan said. “Blackberry has come of age and will become a product of choice.”

O’Callaghan said the Blackberry - with its keyboard - is a good data input device which can be used as a phone and PDA.

“Device management is a significant challenge for organizations and my advice is to provide governance and asset registration,” he said. “Also, make sure you know how to kill the device over the air. The advantage of Blackberry is that it can be wiped and it ends up a paperweight.”

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Mobile broadband – the next enterprise boon?

While the enterprise dabbles with mobility via Wi-Fi or GPRS, a number of carriers have established mobile data networks that promise to offer the throughput of broadband with the ubiquity of mobile coverage.

3G Mobile Internet: Earlier this year Hutchison 3G launched its mobile Internet service that provides 384Kbps of download speed within “video zones” and can be accessed with a PCMCIA card in a notebook.

Shane Williamson, Hutchison 3G’s developers on Three partnership manager, said Wi-Fi is restricted to hotspots and competing services like iBurst and WiMax don’t have the same coverage as Three’s network.

“The enterprise sales force needs to be mobile, the field force need to access live data, and intranet access for applications like ERP and CRM,” Williamson said. “Enterprises have wanted to do this for a while but bandwidth has been a stumbling block.” Internally, Hutchison 3G is using Salesforce.com-hosted CRM “form factored” for the Motorola A925 phone so that mobile sales staff have access to customer information while on the road.

“We encrypt information from the device which can be used with VPNs and other security measures,” he said.

Hutchison 3G has set up a developers’ Web site (developers.three.com.au) to encourage business to look at porting their applications to the Three mobile network.

iBurst:Under the guise of iBurst, Personal Broadband Australia (PBA) has built a mobile data network covering some 300 square kilometres of Sydney, with Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and the Gold Coast set to go live in September.

PBA’s chief technical officer Jonathon Withers said neither Wi-Fi nor GPRS fit the bill for true enterprise mobility.

“Wi-Fi has the bandwidth but not the coverage, and GPRS is the inverse as it has the coverage but not the bandwidth,” Withers said. “The demand for iBurst is inevitable. When the mobile phone first came out people viewed it as a high-tech business tool; now the growth in mobile computing devices is strong as notebook sales are set to outstrip PC sales.”

The iBurst service offers 1Mbps of data throughput across an “always-on” mobile network.

When asked why CIOs should consider investing in a service like iBurst, Withers said: “We’re talking productivity gains here and they can be huge.”

Although not positioned as a VoIP service, Withers said the IP-based network is capable of carrying voice and enterprises will be the starting point.

PCMCIA cards are available for corporate notebooks today to access iBurst and the service is cross-platform.

Unwired: Like iBurst, Unwired has built a greenfield mobile broadband network and will offer the service to businesses and consumers. The Sydney rollout starts this month and the company expects it to be completed by mid-August.

Unwired’s CEO David Spence said wireless broadband is about “coverage, capacity, cost, mobility, and convenience”.

Unwired is initially targeting the consumer and small business market but plans to offer a corporate service before the end of the year when its PCMCIA access cards for notebooks become available.

“As these rollouts happen around the world, the volumes will help us bring down the cost of the PCMCIA card,” Spence said. “It’s also a great product to connect a wireless router to for a portable hotspot.”

“The network is totally Telstra-free,” he said. “Uecomm provides the fibre backhaul to our Equinix data centre.”

Navini was chosen because we had the luxury of a large amount of the spectrum and it would take only 70 or so towers to cover Sydney. “Navini is a proprietary technology that is working towards whatever the Wimax standard will be,” Spence said. “Any changes will happen on the base stations.”

Also in the works is a VoIP service that will permit mobile calls to be made from a notebook.

“The technology was built for the voice service as well as the data service and we can apply quality of service to voice,” Spence said.

Unwired is also cross-platform and with the Sydney network in place will be rolled out to other capitals and regional cities with a plan to cover 70 percent of the population.

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The enterprise mobility market

Enterprises will accelerate wireless spending during the next two to three years, according to Meta Group as IT leaders see increased value in mobility.

Bjarne Munch, Meta’s senior communications analyst, said that although there is a lot of interest in mobility, the lack of suitable infrastructure is the major stumbling block.

“We’re still seeing infrastructure [development] this year as there is a lack of ubiquitous coverage,” Munch said. “We’re seeing initiatives from 3G mobile services but Three only has licences in the capital cities and not a fully national licence. I don’t see a focus on a reliable mobile service.” Munch said the key attributes of a mobile data network are reliability, ubiquity, and affordability.

“By the end of this year mobile access to corporate networks will heat up,” he said. “While [Wi-Fi] hotspots are not carrier-grade they provide access in a way that complements wired networks as GPRS won’t be sufficient outside major residential areas.”

According to Meta, 50 percent of enterprises will have wireless e-mail in place within two or three years, which will give rise to more wireless application projects. Most projects are concentrating on some form of field-force automation that is an extension of an existing environment. Munch said the rise of mobile broadband services is dogged by standards compliance.

“The thing about iBurst and Wimax is that it’s not widespread or standardized and that may be a few years away.

“Although a lot of notebooks have wireless already embedded, Intel’s support of Wimax is interesting. The key thing is that it must be easy for corporations to use wireless and the hotspot aggregators can provide this today.”

Munch firmly believes that until we see alternative technologies become pervasive the hotspots will dominate.

“Getting data from the [corporate] database to the screen must be easy and mobile office applications require more than e-mail as that’s the easy thing to do,” he said.

“The next step is mobilising CRM where there is a strong business case but you can’t assume there will always be a network. Applications need to have local storage and replicate it back. That’s an entire emerging market right now.”

Munch said the key developments over the next 12 months will involve looking for a more comprehensive solution and a more mature approach to mobile computing.

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Wireless innovation

Ever since the Internet emerged as a transformational tool of business, the technology industry and its legion of followers have been seeking the Next Big Thing, entrenched in the belief there will be a digital second coming that will elevate our lives.

It is a hope that keeps research and development alive, especially in the sphere of information and biotechnology. Yet rather than an innovation, invention or discovery, it is the concept of achieving access to technology at any time or place that holds the greatest potential for beneficial change, at least in the developed world.

The aspirations for wireless communication technologies, among consumers, industry players, investors and the media, reflect this.

Adoption of the mobile phone, use of SMS and gradually increasing use of multimedia messaging service (MMS) proves beyond doubt we are prepared to embrace communication and information at any time or location. Indeed, we are not just prepared for it, we pay for it.

Excitement has been generated in the last few months about a new, high-speed wireless technology called WiMax. It works in a similar way to mobile phones, using strategically placed nodes or base stations to provide network coverage. The basic distinction is that it is initially designed for data services and throws out a signal of up to 50km in radius.

Stoking the fire of WiMax enthusiasm is Intel, which has announced its next generation Centrino wireless chipset will incorporate not only Wi-Fi technology (wireless fidelity), which underpins all those little “hotspots” sprinkled around the place, but also WiMax.

In the eyes of some, the power of Intel’s endorsement anoints WiMax, or more generically “broadband wireless” technologies, as at least the next big thing to come of age.

This may prove correct but many planets must align before broadband wireless becomes a reality in the mass market, including standardisation, product availability, coverage (a major challenge in the Australian market) and proven business models and sales channels.

As always with wireless technologies, the claims of vendors over peak data rates should be approached with caution.

WiMax in its first iteration will actually be designed for fixed-site computing. It will provide high-speed access for consumers who cannot gain xDSL or cable services because of their location or pair-gain issues on the copper-wire network.

This is already a well-understood market that is being addressed, albeit with sometimes expensive monthly fees of upwards of $80 by service providers for the iBurst mobile wireless technology, and Unwired, a small Sydney-operations that deploys a fixed wireless solution from America’s Navini Networks.

The alternatives in the high-speed wireless world read like a shopping list. IP Wireless has been impressive in Auckland, where it was deployed by Woosh using a 3G-standards compliant technology called TD-CDMA . Then, among several alternatives, is Flarion from the US, cdma2000 1x (with EV DO and from 2006, the EV DV variants) which Telstra is investigating.

High-speed mobile phone access should not be discounted either. Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution (EDGE) ” is a GSM evolution supporting similar data rates to those offered by cdma2000 1x. EDGE is currently being rolled out in parts of South-East Asia, But is less likely to make an appearance in Australia given the lack of local commercial interest.

Barring a change of heart by the technical gurus at Intel, WiMax has a future and probably a profitable one. Its first application will be what the telecommunication industry describes as “backhaul” – updating what will be tired Wi-Fi technology at the hotspots. Companies such as Siemens, Alcatel and Alvarion are already onto this.

Basic desktop access will be next, but may require a roof antenna and even a technician to install it – and we all know how expensive that has proven for FoxTel. Gartner estimates self-install, smart antennae will not be around at least until 2007-08.

My colleagues are even more pessimistic about when a fully mobile WiMax offering will turn up supporting high speed handoff between cells. Our research position is a rather depressing 2009 timeframe with a PDA or mobile phone derivative a further 12 months out.

Intel says its WiMax chipset will be in production by 2006, but it will take some time for widespread diffusion of that technology.

It is debatable whether current iterations of broadband wireless will achieve the same rapid path to success as Wi-fi, but the revenues and rewards in the longer term may be much greater.

Like all Next Big Things, they come to those who wait.

Nick Ingelbrecht is a principal analyst at Gartner, specialising in mobile and wireless communications.