The Enterprise Awaits

Thousands of wireless developers are working on mobilization projects that, if they succeed, will create new opportunities for businesses to streamline and improve operations.

The biggest is e-mail. A recent study from wireless research firm Telephia (www.telephia.com) found 74% of surveyed users ranked corporate e-mail access on their top three.

Most wireless e-mail systems require users to establish another account and address. Bruce Chatterley, ViAir (www.viair.com) CEO, explained that its core product, Wireless In-Box, doesn't require a new e-mail address.

“Wireless In-Box gets you 1-click access to all of your e-mail accounts, calendar and corporate contacts,” Chatterley said. “The last thing you want to do is change your e-mail identity to gain mobile access to information you already have access to.”

And ViAir doesn't ask carrier customers to give up valuable home-deck real estate for a ViAir logo. By recognizing that it provides a valuable service, not a brand, the company already has a leg up in carrier negotiations.

Randy Brouckman, CEO of upstart enterprise-application developer Telispark (www.telispark.com), has a good idea of the direction wireless data will — or should — take in the next two years.

“I still believe that wireless data has the potential to be an enabler of applications that can transform businesses,” he said. “A lot of steps that occur in today's workplace — calling in for information — can be eliminated.”

Telispark targets a particular function in a vertical industry and runs its application alongside existing legacy systems from companies such as Oracle (www.oracle.com) and Siebel (www.siebel.com). To sell its applications and services, Telispark works through existing sales channels with big-five systems integrators Accenture (www.accenture.com), CapGemini (www.cgey.com), PriceWaterhouse-Coopers (www.pricewaterhouse.com), Deloitte (www.deloitte.com) and KPMG (www.kpmg.com).

Brouckman champions packaged applications configured to transform specific business functions.

“A work flow based on a packaged system doesn't resemble the applications of today,” he explained. “We see things like airline maintenance, where there has been a huge increase in volume of work needing to be done, and it's now under a microscope by politicians — and this is an industry ripe for a transformation and exploiting of the technologies and applications that are out there.”

Beyond simply tying into legacy systems, functionality of wireless applications must include transactional access across all levels, he said. Viewing data from remote locations is not enough anymore. Workers need to effect change, reformat and interact with data via their wireless devices.

“People need transaction-level access and deep integration across real core systems that often include more than one legacy system,” Brouckman said. “I don't think just making applications mobile is going to cut it.”

Hosting and other services aren't where Telispark means to make its mark on the industry, he said. In approaching it from the application-only standpoint, Brouckman has keyed in on what he feels is the most viable business model.

“Some platform companies see what I see and will go this direction,” he said. “But to move up into the enterprise isn't easy. It means knowing all of your back-end systems. You have to design it around business processes. You need to understand what those processes are today and how they need to be optimized for the future. And you need access.”

The next couple of years will require hard work from wireless-data pioneers aiming for success.

“The next 12-24 months will be a real push,” Brouckman said. “The hockey stick isn't this year, and it probably won't be next year, either. The next few years are going to be about building things people really need to solve real problems.”