Enterprising ideas

“In terms of who gets it and who's going to deliver it, by and large the carriers are still absolutely clueless.”— Bob Egan, vice president and research director, Gartner

If you were part of the throng that converged on Las Vegas last week for Wireless 2001, chances are you already understand that the “it” in the comment above is mobile data. Whether your company creates applications to drive it or develops ways to process it or makes devices to decipher it or operates a network to transport it, mobile data is the only “it” in the wireless sector right now.

Like every other aspect of networking, however, achieving success in the central “it” depends on countless variables. Applications won't be properly directed until networks are ready and content developers understand what consumers require and will pay for. Networks won't be ready until technology snags are untangled, standards are buttoned down, spectrum is available, investment cycles are right and revenue prospects are good. Everything goes hand in hand in hand.

And don't forget the most important hands in that chain: customers. Neither corporate enterprise users nor broader consumer masses will really know what they want and what they can do until someone shows them what networks and devices are capable of and demonstrates how it will make them more productive. Unfortunately, that's the one thing everyone involved in wireless consistently glosses over.

Bob Egan of Gartner is of the opinion that wireless service providers as we know them are never going to get “it” — that they're never going to succeed at being purveyors of wireless data applications the way they have succeeded at selling voice services. They're bit pushers, he maintains, and that mentality doesn't translate well to the highly specialized and customized realm of wireless data.

It's an entirely logical argument. Despite all the heat wireless carriers take for their seemingly sluggish network migrations and plodding next generation technology implementations, that effort is monumental and extraordinarily complex. They are completely consumed with evaluating and financing and executing their network technology progression, and the ultimate questions of who will use the network and for what purposes and at what costs simply have to wait.

That's why Egan believes those pertinent questions must be addressed by the customers themselves — specifically by the enterprise IT managers and chief information officers of corporations large, medium and small. They will be the mother lode for revenue-generating wireless applications, and Egan maintains that many of them already are developing mobile data initiatives on their own. They're already spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to figure out how networks and devices can be put to the best uses for their workforces, and how much those services will be worth to their companies. The big question now is which service provider entities will recognize the direction from which the most powerful mobile data momentum is coming and seize the opportunity to own the corporate customers that so badly want to be owned.

The answer remains to be seen, but Egan's view is that it won't be the usual suspects. The wireless network operators will play a large role in facilitating and operating networks and selling airtime, he says, but the front lines will be made up of a new breed of mobile virtual network operators that understand enterprise customers and are able to tailor wireless data applications to their specific corporate needs.

How the existing crop of wireless carriers will fare in that scenario remains to be seen, but don't be surprised if the limelight at next year's CTIA event is cast upon a whole new group of players.
Contact Jason Meyers at jmeyers@intertec.com.