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Home > Mobile Computing News > Business users falling in love with handhelds |
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BOSTON -- According to one industry expert, wireless technology is rapidly taking hold in the enterprise because business users are falling in love with the technology. Rajit Gadh, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and director of the Wireless Internet for Mobile Enterprise Consortium (WINMEC), told attendees at this week's LOMA Emerging Technology Conference that enterprises investing in wireless and mobile applications are improving business agility and productivity. What's more, he said, field force workers, such as insurance claims processors and loan originators, many of whom typically shy away from cutting-edge technology, are putting down their pencils and notepads in favor of wireless devices. "Studies are finding that folks in the field are able to conduct up to three times as many transactions in a day" because of the increased productivity gained from using a handheld device, Gadh told attendees, most of whom were insurance and financial services professionals. Oddly enough, he said, some of the least technologically complex applications, such as instant messaging and transaction processing, often provide the best return on investment because they often enable users to take advantage of time that would otherwise go to waste, like time spent traveling or waiting in line. During his keynote, Gadh touched on emerging wireless technologies that could offer benefits to the insurance and financial services industries. One, called ultra wideband (UWB), offers the ability to transmit high-bandwidth data using low power over short distances, without interfering with other kinds of wireless signals. He said UWB could eventually be useful to stockbrokers, allowing floor traders to synchronize data on their PDAs without returning to an office or docking station. Another such technology, radio frequency identification (RFID), attaches tiny radio chips to products or devices, storing and transmitting data about them. Gadh said RFID chips could one day be attached to various parts of an automobile, and, in the event of an accident, help to determine the cost of fixing the vehicle by transmitting information about which parts are broken. Connectivity anxiety During a panel discussion that followed Gadh's keynote address, experts addressed a concern among several attendees about implementing mobile technology when today's network coverage areas are unreliable. Kevin Corneille, development manager for the mobile solutions group at Accenture Inc., said that, whenever possible, companies should develop mobile applications with robust offline functionality. "In today's environment, you can't always count on connectivity," said Corneille, suggesting that mobile devices be enabled to store transactions and batch them back to an application server as needed. However, attendee Joe Perno, an industry advisor for the Innovation Group in Overland Park, Kan., said that wireless technology isn't yet able to meet the needs of today's property and casualty claims field workers. Perno, who until recently worked for an auto insurance company with approximately 150,000 customers, said that many auto accidents take place outside of cellular or wireless LAN coverage areas, leaving mobile workers far outside coverage areas and unable to send data using their mobile devices. He also noted that he lives in a community that bans cellular signal towers, and many rural locations in the U.S. do the same, which plays a role in coverage limitation issues. Practicing policy Even though insurance and financial services workers typically use mobile devices from the office, panelist Todd Achilles, director of product development and sales engineering for T-Mobile USA Inc., in Bellevue, Wash., said that mobile devices should be treated like computers in a branch office. Conceptually, Achilles said, field workers shouldn't have any more or less functionality than those working in remote offices. He said it's too difficult to manage a myriad of different devices, each governed by a different set of business rules. But panelist Said Mohammadioun, CEO of Synchrologic Inc. in Alpharetta, Ga., said that because information presentation is different than it is on standard enterprise applications, mobile devices must be treated differently. He suggested creating business rules that enable mobile applications to access only the data essential to mobile workers. "That way, only the applicable piece of your database is replicated on your mobile device," Mohammadioun said. Rick Williams, a manager with ThoughtWorks Inc., a custom application development firm based in Chicago, said that he is worried that mobile technology is advancing too quickly. For instance, he said, he wouldn't want to develop a mobile application that batches data, when real-time mobile applications might be more feasible in 12 or 18 months. FOR MORE INFORMATION: Read how one company has turned cell phones into timecards. Browse our vertical industry case studies.
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