Battle
For The Enterprise
By Rich Tehrani
As I write this, I am surrounded by hundreds of
people that have come to Battle For The Enterprise at Planet PDA. This
is the second day of Planet PDA, and yesterday it became apparent to
me that many attendees are struggling with the decision of which
platform to commit to for their organization or application.
The thirst for information was highlighted at last
night's keynote. Larry Miller, the VP of Marketing from NEC, delivered
the first keynote and demonstrated their new Pocket PC-based PDA, the
MobilePro P300, which has integrated Secure Digital and CompactFlash
slots. Amazingly, he gave his presentation directly from the device
and it looked great.
One feature of their new PDA that really wowed the
audience was its capability for remote management of devices. MIS
departments everywhere are grappling with the management of disparate
devices throughout their enterprise. For example, when I gave a
session on Pocket PC 2002 and mentioned the enhanced password
functionality, many conferees asked me whether MIS can set the
passwords on users' PDAs. The answer I gave? "I don't think
so." NEC is the first company I have seen to address the need to
manage handheld devices centrally.
Battle Presentations
Getting back to the Battle For The Enterprise, which was hosted by
Gerry Purdy, the CEO of Mobile Insights -- an interesting part of the
introduction was given by Reginald Linebarger, the director of iPAQ
Products and Access Services, who mentioned that more than half of
their devices are purchased by individuals, not enterprises. These
individual users are then coming into enterprises and challenging the
MIS department.
Kevin Havre, the Technical Marketing Manager for HP,
started with a joke, saying that HP and Compaq had no plans to change
their name to HewPaq. Havre went on to say that their handheld
computing experience started with DOS, and that they saw that the
future of PDAs as being WinCE, as these devices will likely have to
run all the apps that are currently used in the enterprise
environment.
Peter Belman of Motient mentioned that their network
is the largest wireless network in the US and is used by UPS and
others. It was designed for IBM by Motorola to allow technicians to
keep in touch with the corporate office. He also said that they are
launching a product that will have the ability to use push technology,
like a RIM device, and bring it to PDAs like the Palm platform and
others.
Chad Roberts from PDA Verticals cautioned that we
shouldn't generalize enterprise solutions. Vertical markets can have
vastly different needs: for example, consider the differences between
the needs of healthcare versus those of financial markets.
Larry Miller, VP of Marketing of NEC, said that the
PDA needs a ROI that is better than most any other device as the life
of most of these devices is only about one year. Obviously, they need
to do much more than just manage address books and appointments.
Ray DePaul, Director of Product Planning from
Research In Motion (RIM), mentioned 12,000 customers have already
implemented Blackberries behind their firewalls with Lotus Notes and
other applications. People are deploying these solutions now, and
these solutions do pay for themselves. He said that one of the biggest
fears of the enterprise is e-mail security, and many solutions are
currently available to allow encryption of e-mail data.
Bob Schreib, Senior Manager of Product Marketing for
Mobile Computing Systems at Symbol Technologies, mentioned that
they've been deploying handhelds in the enterprise for more than 10
years. He believes that 802.11b will be ubiquitous in airports,
including on the tarmac and in airplanes (for maintenance purposes),
and in other public spaces too. Schreib reiterated that this stuff is
happening now. In fact, after the 9/11 tragedy, the investigators
tried to run a traditional paper-based investigation and it didn't
work. The cellular networks were too damaged. So they turned to
Symbol, who set up a network for them. When evidence was found, it was
put in a sealed bag, bar-coded, scanned, and GPS triangulated so that
it was known immediately where it had been found. In addition to
avoiding the damaged cellular networks, this allowed for better
tracking of evidence.
Q&A
Now for some notes that I jotted down during the question and
answer session. Please forgive the hurried nature of the responses,
but I have yet to meet a court stenographer who uses a PDA (note to
self... look into this), and I'm no court stenographer.
Q: Are PDAs replacing laptops?
A: NEC says that PDAs are being used in SFA
(sales force automation) to manage teams in the field, not so much for
data collection. NEC sells laptops and notebooks for other
applications that may not be suited to handhelds.
Compaq also took a crack at this, saying that
enterprises are seeing users purchasing PDAs and wanting better
productivity. These users are turning to their companies and saying,
"Help me integrate this into our organization."
Q: This question came from Eastman
Chemical, and they asked if these devices are ready for deployment.
Mentioned that in many instances today's devices wipe data when stored
in a desktop drawer for a period of time.
A: Symbol mentioned that Compaq has a 4MB
flash area and Symbol has 10MB free in flash (permanent storage) that
can bring the device back up. All that's required then is to
recalibrate the screen. This technology is available now. RIM said
that it's about tradeoffs. BlackBerries don't have a great amount of
storage, but their battery life is great.
Among other comments was a particularly funny one
that also provided some insight: a handheld stored in a drawer for a
week is probably not making anyone more efficient anyway.
Q: General question on the role of the
WLAN in business. Will we see new rules of meeting etiquette arise?
What is the use of handhelds with LANs?
A: Compaq spoke up saying that they sell both
RIM and Pocket PC devices. Schools are currently deploying the
technology and not having to deploy network wires throughout the
school. This can give access in classrooms cost effectively.
NEC mentioned that Blackberry e-mail is currently
not so good with PowerPoint and other such attachments. They see
robust e-mail as the killer app, and that can be accessed over WLANs.
Enterprise, Plus
Another interesting thing about Battle For The Enterprise was that we
really expected that the enterprise market was going to be the only
group represented - in fact, we expected enterprise to be the main
group at the show. But we've seen many government volume buyers here
as well. It seems that there is a mandate to make the government more
efficient and there is a mix of military, educational, and municipal
representatives present as well. This industry is evolving faster than
we think.
In Closing
Well, the exhibit hall just opened and I will report back as soon
as I can. This show is jammed. Take a look at the photos and videos
on our site. If at all possible, you definitely want to be here
today or tomorrow.
I'll leave you with some closing comments from
Battle For The Enterprise participants.
Symbol: Start now and get something deployed. Be
ready to change. Get experience. Start trials. Soon enough, all
employees will be connected to all corporate data at all times.
NEC: Manage the asset. Have procedures in
place. Use business deployment to help you do this.
Motient: It's only as good as the network it
is on. Leave no stone unturned when evaluating your network.
PDA Verticals: Focus on the apps. The
networks will change.
RIM: Solve problems, don't play with
technology.
Compaq: Make sure your apps integrate with
your infrastructure.
HP: Think outside the box.
