SAN FRANCISCO — Hammering home a theme of “mobility for everyone,” a trio of
industry executives kicked off the CTIA Wireless conference here in a series
of keynote addresses today. Microsoft , Nokia and Intel
all gave distinct pitches on where they see the mobile
market headed, though reaching new customers was a unifying theme in all
their remarks.
“There is a huge opportunity in messaging and line of business
applications,” said Suzan DelBene, a vice president of marketing at
Microsoft’s mobile and embedded devices division. Of Microsoft’s 130 million
Exchange clients, DelBene said, Microsoft estimates only 10 to 15 million
have a mobile phone solution.
Nokia also plans to add to some already impressive numbers. Last week, the
cell phone maker announced it had sold more than a billion handsets. “Our
experience is in the consumer space, now our next challenge is in the
enterprise,” said Mary McDowell, a vice president and general manager of
enterprise solutions at Nokia. “Today mobility is something of an executive
toy, and we think that’s about to change.”
One driver of that change is the inevitable
convergence of voice, data, the Internet and other technologies to make
the phone more of a primary information tool than an accessory. McDowell
also pointed to a near-term future where cellular and IT worlds converge in
such areas as newer IP-based PBXs and a lessening of the need for separate
land lines.
But in a refreshing departure for a vendor presentation, McDowell also
warned that companies shouldn’t just hand out the latest mobile smart phones and
tell employees to go out and be productive. She said companies must consider
a multitude of factors in rolling out a mobility program across a
significant portion of the enterprise.
Some examples: Is security covered? Which applications are designed for
mobile devices? What are the costs associated with the devices and, if there
is going to be personal use, will the company pay or split that expense with the
employee? Who has access to the devices?
Peter Johnston, a regional vice president of IT at WPP (the parent company
of several large media and public relations firms), said a large majority of
the 6,500 of his company’s worldwide employees could benefit from mobile
technology. Johnston, who joined McDowell on stage, praised the power and
capabilities of Nokia’s latest 9300 smart phone, which he took on a recent
trip to Asia and several other countries. But he also pointed out several
shortcomings and improvements he’d like to see in smart phones in general
and in the infrastructure that supports them.
“I’d like to see the service providers give us seamless Web browsing for
all the devices so we [WPP and other companies] can develop applications we
know will work over a VPN
Johnston said smart phones still don’t have the IQ to deal effectively with
attachments, and more development work on enterprise applications for mobile
is needed.
The rest of his wish list includes an integrated USB port to take
advantage of tiny gigabyte storage devices, and an interface to LCD projectors transforming the cell phone into a handy source of presentation material.
Nokia’s McDowell said her company was working on some of Johnston’s requests and has a particular focus on making smart phones more useful to
enterprise customers. “We have a little different perspective than some
other vendors,” said McDowell. “We don’t see cell phones as ‘junior’ laptops
but as the principal productivity tool to keep connected to customers and your
colleagues.”
Intel’s Sean Maloney, vice president of the chip giant’s mobility group,
spent a fair bit of his keynote discussing full-featured notebooks. He
demonstrated test versions of Intel’s forthcoming dual-core
“Yonah” processor inside a prototype Fujitsu notebook versus several
notebooks sporting standard, single-core Intel chips. The dual-core machine
loaded PowerPoint slides, rendered images and backed up files significantly
faster than the other notebooks. For example, a network backup took four
seconds on the Fujitsu, versus over 30 seconds on the other systems.
Notebooks based on Yonah are expected out next year.
Maloney also made note of news released earlier in the day that Research
In Motion , maker of the BlackBerry device, will be using Intel’s XScale
processor in forthcoming BlackBerry handhelds. In a demo, he showed video
running at 230 frames per second via an XScale processor running at 1.2 GHz.
“You may not need this speed all the time in a device like this, but it
just shows there is enormous headroom there,” said Maloney. “For video or
running multiple applications, you will need more power and want to run it in
an efficient manner. We’re looking at four generations of this processor and,
just like the PC, you’ll see us providing more performance over time in the
same price envelope.”
