That's the big picture finding of research carried out by QNB Intelligence on behalf of IBM. The analyst house found three-quarters of European enterprises will deliver apps over wireless during the next 12 months, using a combination of GSM, GPRS, UMTS, public WLAN and devices from mobiles to PDAs to laptops.
The survey of almost 500 senior influencers and decision-makers across 11 European countries found IT departments have taken ownership of mobile and wireless communications in 60 per cent of cases.
Mobile operators, like vendors, systems integrators and services companies, are increasingly seen as partners.
Dale Vile, QNB analyst, said that while most users want to work with operators to get access to their corporate data, such as e-mail, most prefer to use them for VPN services rather than hosting of applications. "When asked about hosting, nearly all answered 'We wouldn't' or 'Don't know'," he said.
Meanwhile it looks like PDAs are becoming rapidly accepted in the corporate space. Half of organisations now officially supply PDAs.
QNB's Vile added: "PDAs are now considered a legitimate platform." Standardisation, however, is rarely based purely on device vendor but on platforms such as the Nokia Communicator or PocketPC or Palm OS, depending on IT departments' requirements.
IBM said users have woken up to the ROI and productivity of wireless ebusiness.
4%
1%
