One of the biggest computer revolutions of the 1990s remained hidden from most consumers, in spite of being extensively used by anyone who worked for a large company.
It was Microsoft’s Exchange — a server-based means of using e-mail, calendars and contacts, which is now as commonplace in corporate networks as the Windows operating system it runs on.
Although each user has his or her own computer, e-mails and personal information management details are hosted on the central server.
Two of the most useful features are sharing contacts — stored in the “global address book” — and being able to view colleagues’ calendars and make appointments with them.
Now, all of this previously unsung technology is accessible from a cellphone, thanks to general packet radio service (GPRS).
This is a revolutionary always-on connection to the Internet that has been launched by cellular network provider MTN under the brand name MTNdataLIVE.
The cellular provider has joined forces with Microsoft and Ericsson, whose equipment is used in its network, to bring out Office X-Change. This uses wireless application protocol (WAP) and a few passwords that enable you to access your corporate network, look up appointments and find details about a contact.
Doing this on a cellphone is easier than using a hand-held computer.
When it was introduced, WAP got a bad name for being too slow.
In actual fact WAP should not have taken the blame, as cellular networks were designed for voice not data traffic, and poor data speeds negated all its advantages.
Telecommunications companies the world over learned the lesson of over-hyping new technology the hard way — the so-called “WAP-lash” — and as a result all attention has been focused on the services and features it makes possible.
WAP is a useful means of accessing data. It was designed as a way to “port” or transfer Web content to the small screen of a cellphone.
The current reinvigoration of interest in WAP is because cellphone users require more than one means of accessing data, be it an e-mail address, a new ring-tone or horoscope update.
WAP is a so-called “pull” technology, which lets the user go and fetch the information he or she wants. WAP sites are much like Web pages, although they are mostly text based.
An unusual demonstration held by MTN at the University of Pretoria’s sports centre this week showed the various benefits of WAP and the new GPRS technology.
Journalists were put behind the wheel of a snazzy new Mini Cooper and pointed at an “obstacle” course that required effective use of this new cellphone technology to overcome it.
The participating reporters drove around the course and negotiated obstacles such as sending an SMS to open a gate using a Motorola Accompli 008 to accomplish their tasks.
One of the more extraordinary obstacles featured a table in the middle of nowhere on which was a laptop computer, telephone, fax machine and printer, manned by a rather cold MTN demonstrator.
The journalists had to send an e-mail to this “office”, which had to be received and printed out by the demonstrator in order to get the green light to continue with the course.
What was remarkable was that the MTN demonstrator was running everything on the table off a car battery through a small box that gave him all the telecommunications connections he needed.
The small box in question is MTN’s Instant Office, which is aimed at the burgeoning small and medium businesses market. It can connect three telephones and a computer, and can be up and running in no time.
Considering how long it takes for a landline to be connected, this is an instant boon, as is the ability to set up shop anywhere you want and move premises easily. “Wireless mobile solutions are the new trend,” says George Bongi, MTN group executive for marketing. “We are selling solutions not SIM cards.”
Bongi says the costs of such a system are less than using a landline, which may have cheaper running costs (the price per call) than cellular but have higher set-up and maintenance costs.
But Instant Office also allows the use of another wireless technology called high speed circuit switch data (HSCSD), which MTN has branded MTNdataFAST.
Unlike GPRS, which is ideal for transfers of small amounts of data and billed by those amounts, HSCSD is billed according to the amount of time you spend online.
It uses four times as many “connections” to the wireless network as GPRS and is therefore much faster and better for downloading stuff from the Internet or sending and receiving large amounts of data such as e-mails.
While driving round the MTN obstacle course, it struck me that the Mini is an apt analogy of where cellphone technology is going.
When the tiny automobile first appeared in the 1960s, it was a bare-bones car with a very basic structure that drove well. Now, courtesy of its revival by BMW, it’s an all-singing, all-dancing gadget-laden techno-vehicle.
A few years ago cellphones had small, black-and-white screens and few features. WAP is at a similar point in its evolution now. But where they are both going — with faster data speeds and colour handsets with built-in cameras — is similar to the quantum leap the Mini has experienced.
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