silicon.com's Jo Best looks at 10 oft-debated areas in mobile and wireless and asks a simple question: how much should you care over the next 12 months?
1. FMC
Fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) to many is synonymous with dual-mode handsets. However, it's a broad church and for the purposes of this section, FMC means the converging functionality between desk phones and mobiles rather than converged handsets providing both fixed and mobile capability. Dual mode is covered in the mobile VoIP section of this guide.
FMC in this context is about ensuring corporate users can, for example, expect the same functionality from their PBX as their mobile and vice versa -- same address book, call redirection and so on. In short, getting access to the same data and experience whichever network you use.
Nick McQuire, Yankee Group programme manager, told silicon.com: "Across the board, there are varying stages. There are certain verticals that are very much looking at FMC ... There are certain organisations -- utilities, financial services -- where we're seeing more and more interest. Over the last 18 months there has been significant interest in fixed-mobile convergence."
The analyst recommends CIOs should undertake an audit of their mobility to really understand how the company is operating using mobility before embarking on any change.
McQuire says companies may want "their service provider to walk them through it" but advises CIOs to avoid being shoehorned into a particular technology at the behest of their supplier.
RATING: 3/5 -- getting there.
2. Salesforce automation
Salesforce and field force automation have long been on CIOs' agendas and the possibility of taking such applications mobile has clear benefits. Yet deployments have often been sidelined due to issues around networks.
Few CIOs will doubt the utility of mobile email but mobile SFA presents a different set of challenges particularly around its bandwidth-hungry nature.
As 3G speeds increase in future, for example bolstered by rollouts of HSDPA over the next 18 months, the true potential of such mobile applications is likely to grow. Higher speeds will now mean the possibility of permanently connected SFA, unlike the historical trend for applications on devices that were only connected to the network periodically.
According to analyst house Forrester, around a quarter of enterprises with SFA software have gone mobile with it.
While ROI may be hard to determine, much as is it for mobile email, mobile SFA generates hard benefits as well as soft. Among the benefits driving the deployments are speed of business -- agents can have access to client data immediately and make changes in real time -- and improving accuracy. Liz Herbert, senior analyst at Forrester, said: "With mobile SFA you tend to get more information and you tend to get better information."
For those pondering a rollout, issues of security should be writ large in any plan, with just one or two operating systems and only corporate devices supported. Usability is also key.
Herbert added: "Sometimes firms try to cram too much onto small devices for it to be useful. Firms should try to figure out what the key activities are where reps will benefit from having mobile device access and focus on those, not on trying to enable every single SFA feature on the device."
RATING: 4/5 -- taking enterprise apps mobile isn't easy but can have immediate impact.
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