Mobility: Going beyond messaging

The mobile worker will be able to do a lot more, thanks to new technology, but not for a while.

The promise of a handset with applications that match those on your desktop is not around the corner, despite what some vendors are saying.

Recently, Sage Software and RIM entered into a partnership to push CRM to the mobile space.

Analyst Richard Hill of E-CRM Solutions cited a survey that found 83 per cent of salespeople believed that a PDA sales solution would make them more productive. The same survey also showed that 90 per cent of respondents would use their CRM system more if they had handheld mobile access.

Currently, messaging is the most widely-used application on anyone's handset, according to Eddie Chan, research analyst, mobile/personal computing and technology at IDC Canada of Toronto.

Messaging is favoured
Messaging is an overwhelming favourite among the mobile worker with, the Blackberry, Palm, Linux and Symbian to the newly released Windows Mobile 6 platform.

But, on the distant horizon, the mobile worker can see applications such as CRM, sales force automation, global positioning service (GPS) and other desktop office applications.

IDC recently polled all of its business segments and found that 51 per cent of respondents have deployed some kind of mobile messaging application. This means the opportunity is still a very large one for the channel in messaging.

Chan added that the enterprise customers are still well ahead of the small and mid-sized business customers in deploying mobile messaging. The channel will have more companies to sell messaging solutions to.

“Canada is still predominantly an SMB market place,” he said.

“The device market is relatively young, but it is really taking off the past couple of years largely due to the success of RIM and its mobilized e-mail application,” Chan said.

Voice and text communication will also be the killer app for the mobile worker. Beyond messaging, the next target application will be VoIP.

Microsoft is plunging ahead with its attempts to penetrate the BlackBerry-dominated mobile market with Windows Mobile 6, the newest version of its mobile operating system.

One of Mobile 6's highlights is its VoIP capabilities, which simplifies getting a Mobile 6-enabled device VoIP-ready. Hewlett-Packard used the recent 3GGSM World Congress to announce its iPaq 500 series Voice Messenger smartphone, which will run on Windows Mobile 6 and is planned for a July rollout in Canada.

“We all know that mobile space is where the growth is,” said Marwan Al-Najjar, HP Canada's iPaq product marketing manager. He said that clients want a single device they can use in the office and out; its new smartphone has hands-free wireless e-mail that can run through voice control.

On-the-go users will have a virtual office in their hand because the software allows the use of a mobile version of the Office suite, including Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Users can navigate documents and spreadsheets in their original format, and tables, images and text show up normally.

Chan said that desktop apps such as Office had a huge drop-off in IDC's survey.

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