Wireless technologies are sweeping across the world, changing the way that people work
David Shapshak
Europe is a great place for revolutions. After centuries and decades of political and social upheavals, revolutions are part of the landscape.
Right now there is a quiet revolution going on. It has no leaders, no charter of demands, in fact, its millions of “revolutionaries” probably don’t even know they belong to any kind of movement.
They are the mobile workforce, the travelling executives and salesmen, the “location independent workers” who work wherever they are, whenever they can.
And what makes it possible for them to do this is a range of wireless technology, both hardware and services, that, while sweeping through the world, has reached a more mature level in Europe.
Of course, wireless has been the buzz word in technology circles for several years but this is the year it is predicted that it will all come together. The rise of cellular telephony has been accompanied by the rapid growth of other wireless technology (most notably that of wireless networking protocols like the bizarrely named 802.11b and Bluetooth). Coupled with increasingly powerful mobile devices both smarter cellphones and more powerful personal digital assistants (PDAs), and the integration of both the scene is set for true mobile computing.
PDAs or handheld computers can do almost everything their desktop big brothers can, while laptops are increasingly seen as “desktop replacements” offering all the ease of mobility but the power of conventional computing. For the latter there is an increasingly popular range of “ultra-portables”, super-light machines stripped of the bulky peripherals like their CD and stiffy drives for easy mobility but housed in a docking station which remains connected to a network with an attached monitor, keyboard and mouse that give you good old desktop computing.
A range of wireless gadgetry on display at a Hewlett-Packard mobility conference in Rome last week confirmed that many of these developments are ready for market; and the market appears to be ready for them.
“Mobile is a phenomenal opportunity that stands in front of us. We think it is about to explode,” says John Saw, Hewlett-Packard’s director of marketing for its business customer organisation. He is responsible for the massive Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa region, which includes 45% of the global land mass, 104 countries, 17 time zones, just over 1-billion people and 35 languages. That’s a lot of people and a lot of opportunity.
Quoting figures from research house IDC, Saw says there are 1-billion cellphones being bought or used this year and there will be more than 150-million mobile Internet users this year, while the global market for mobile e-business could reach $25-billion by 2004.
The latest developments in technology are not merely for technology’s sake and Hewlett-Packard is concentrating on a seamless experience across the various networks for users, says Ivica Juresa, European marketing director for mobile solutions.
“It’s not about the mobile Internet in your pocket. We are talking about secure roaming between networks, be they wireless, fixed line or GPRS [general packet radio services]. There will be no rebooting, you will continue your secure session no matter where it was started,” he says.
To begin with, all your technology needs to be wirelessly enabled which is as easy as a sliding a credit card-sized PC card, with a little aerial, into a laptop; or even easier as most new machines have it all built in. Hewlett-Packard’s Jornada handheld computer, which runs Microsoft’s Pocket PC operating system, has a slot at the back that can plug in a wireless card, more memory or a small digital camera.
Then the wireless infrastructure needs to be in place in the form of wireless networks in corporate offices, or what are called wireless “hot spots” in public areas like airports, train stations and coffee shops. Locally many businesses, including Discovery Health, supplement their cabled local area networks (LANs) with wireless LANs in boardrooms and meeting areas, so laptop users can continue working through wireless access to the network.
Hewlett-Packard demonstrated how easily a device can migrate across a variety of wireless connections, without losing the current session it was logged into. So, if you are viewing your e-mail, a Web page or chatting with a colleague in Budapest, you can use the same device (most likely a handheld like the Jornada) across your corporate or home wireless network, the cellular net or a wireless “hot spot” in a public area. Hewlett-Packard’s Open Roaming system provides seamless and secure roaming over various networks, while running in the background. There is no need to change any settings for networks.
“We’re trying to make it be more simple,” says Geoff Hogg, Hewlett-Packard’s European program manager for mobile solutions.
“The application in the background automatically selects the best that is available, depending on what network is available and which has the best speed. The only thing that changes is the network; the security remains running.
“That solution works fine for consumers if there are hot spots around, and works best for business users who are working in one office then go to another; or if they are in a customer’s office.
“It wastes time rebooting a session and is technically complex to change parameters. We’re trying to make life easier from a technical perspective by hiding the technicality behind the curtain.”
For consumers, a service called OpenChat lets you seamlessly switch between a variety of user interfaces while chatting which is the highly fashionable form of sending short messages made popular by computer-based Internet instant messaging and taken up by SMSs on cellphones.
Without interrupting your chat, you can switch from an SMS interface to a WAP one, then back to an instant messenger on your computer, even a chat room on the Internet. At any time, you can launch into a voice conversation.
However, a much more powerful application is the Hewlett-Packard Anyway system that is aimed at small and medium enterprises. A kind of “mobility box”, it plugs directly to the commonly used Microsoft Exchange server and can display travelling users’ e-mail, calendar and diary on a handheld computer or cellphone, or through the Internet. The system uses the wide variety of wireless technologies available to major corporates but the user is only billed for usage, making it an affordable option.
While wireless LANs are primarily used for connecting machines to the network, Bluetooth provides a useful solution for everyday office functionality like printing. It is aimed at being a means to replace the mass of wires and cables that accompany most computer installations, while also offering an easy way to wirelessly connect mobile devices to other handhelds or computers.
Hewlett-Packard’s new generation of Omnibook laptops have a handy on-off switch on the top of the screen, which also encases the antennae, that flashes bright blue when connected. One portable solution includes a custom-made laptop bag on wheels that houses both the computer and a very compact transportable Bluetooth-enabled printer that is the size of an ultra-portable notebook.
The New Zealand police force uses this Bluetooth solution in its patrol cars, meaning police can print out details of suspected stolen cars or traffic licence offences from a printer.
These new services, and particularly the mindset that informs them, is about “supporting mobile individual in mobile world,” says Juresa. The mobile strategy involves taking services and elements and making them mobile.
“This is service-centric computing. It creates additional value. You won’t necessarily browse the Internet but if you want to know about your flight, if it is delayed, or you are waiting for it, you want a warning.
“It is the best use of wired and wireless for example, a [wireless] PDA that will connect to a [wired] printer. This is not technology for technology’s sake. It is really about thinking what is useful and will work together and give a valuable experience.”
This is the seamless roaming Hewlett-Packard wants you to experience, in the office, at home or anywhere in-between. This in-between is the lucrative world of the cellphone providers, who are looking to recoup the extravagant amounts they paid for the next generation of super-fast cellular licences.
Data channels are a good source of money for network operators, says Juresa. SMS, for instance, contributes 10% of revenue for some cellular operators but 30% of profit.
This is helped by a plethora of new devices: mobile phones have “local intelligence” by virtue of being able to use their position to access location-specific services such as restaurant guides or directions; while they have increased storage. All of these “give you new possibilities of using information”.
“The kinds of services really depend on whether they are in the consumer or enterprise space,” says Juresa.
“In the enterprise space, you don’t have to be fancy. They can be WAP. A service engineer doesn’t care how the info gets to him or how it looks, just that he gets it.”
The consumer however, expects much more of a song and dance.
“For the consumer, it has to be fancy and fun, colourful and spotty. They like games, not stupid games, interesting games.”
At the moment these are SMS-based, but are increasingly WAP-based. WAP, or wireless application protocol, was a dismal failure for the technology world, partly because it was over-hyped and partly because the current second-generation GSM cellular network, used in South Africa, Europe and Asia, was simply too slow. WAP really is nothing more than a means of delivering Web-like content to cellphones.
However, one of the most promising developments in recent years is the impending roll-out of the next generation of networks, which provide always-on Internet access. This so-called 2.5G system is known as general packet radio services (GPRS). In Germany there is almost 80% GPRS coverage, says Juresa. South Africa’s three cellular providers say this will be rolled out sometime this year.
The new GPRS handsets are themselves powerful handheld devices, with better screens, and some have built-in cameras that allow for sending colour images and anima- tion using multimedia messaging services.
“The mobile revolution is going to have some significant effects,” says Hogg. “I don’t think we’ve fully come to grips with how that will be.”