* Guidelines for choosing mobile devices
An interesting discussion at last week’s CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment 2007 conference in San Francisco focused on how enterprises should go about selecting end-user devices from the ever-increasing myriad of choices.
Conference session moderator Avi Greengart, principal analyst at Current Analysis, suggested answering the following questions as a place to start:
* Will devices be used for both end-user business and personal use?
* Who is selecting the devices – the end users or the IT department?
* What purpose(s) does the device need to serve?
* What type of connectivity is needed in terms of speed and coverage?
* Will the user require international roaming?
* Should the device be ruggedized?
There might be different answers for various users, which can be separated into groups with common requirements. Then you can compare features, operating system, and security supported by the devices that qualify for each group.
Andy Willet, senior VP of business development at mobile VPN company NetMotion Wireless, agreed that the degree of ruggedness of a device should be decided early on. He suggested that basing that decision only on the replacement cost of the device might be shortsighted. He says you also need to consider the productivity and revenue losses associated with a device breaking and requiring a day or longer to replace.
Willet advised that the initial focus should be on applications, security, and management and that the device should be chosen last to match the infrastructure.
What becomes tricky is serving more than one user base with a line-of-business application. In another conference session, Mario Kovacevic, CIO at Canadian commercial real estate company J.J. Barnicke, discussed his company’s success in integrating CRM data sets with dynamically changing property availability and price information. Mobile salespeople with BlackBerry 8830 World Edition Smartphones, the first CDMA-capable BlackBerry able to roam on GSM/GPRS networks, can access “the most important information, not necessarily all information” through a CRM portal, Kovacevic explained.
He added that some J.J. Barnicke clients would like to participate in accessing the CRM and property information as a service. When asked how his company accommodates organizations that might be using any number of devices with different screen sizes and connectivity capabilities, Kovacevic acknowledged, “Our clients to date have all had to work with the BlackBerry.”Editor’s note: Starting Nov. 12 week, you will notice a number of enhancements to Network World newsletters that will provide you with more resources and more news links relevant to the newsletter’s subject. Beginning Monday, Nov. 12, the Wireless in the Enterprise Newsletter, written by Joanie Wexler, will be merged with the Wireless News Alert and will be named the Wireless Alert. You’ll get Joanie’s analysis of the wireless market, which you will be able to read in full at NetworkWorld.com, plus links to the day’s wireless news and other relevant resources. This Alert will be mailed on Mondays and Wednesdays. We hope you will enjoy the enhancements and we thank you for reading Network World newsletters.
