The Wireless Workplace

New data applications enable businesses to function anytime, anywhere.

Think about work without your wireless phone or access to e-mail. Not much would get done. Now think about how much more work you could get done during the day with wireless access to your corporate e-mail, internal database, calendar and other critical work-flow applications.

Though widespread adoption of wireless-data applications may not be right around the corner, many companies today are improving efficiency through targeted use of wireless-data solutions.

Take the example of BestTransport.com, an online marketplace for shippers and carriers. The company uses a wireless-data solution to facilitate a much faster transportation process for its users. Shippers and carriers alike save time and money. The CEO holds his wireless-data solution in such high regard that he was reluctant to talk about it for fear of tipping off the competition.

So-called vertical applications of wireless data - tightly focused on one industry segment - seem to be further developed than horizontal applications such as wireless e-mail. But there are differing opinions on this point. Some analysts say horizontal; others say vertical. But all agree that business users are where the money's at in the near-term.

A recent IDC study shows that enterprise applications are expected to grow by a compound annual rate of 125% between now and 2004.

In October, Evans Data released its survey of 310 wireless developers, asking them about current and future projects.

Whether e-mail or vertical apps ultimately emerge as popular, carriers should begin paying close attention to this growing field of wireless-data development.

"Business customers are going to be the first to really latch onto wireless-data services," said Knox Bricken, the Yankee Group wireless mobile services analyst. "I do think ERP (enterprise resource planning) solutions, sales-force automation, is really going to be where the money is, at least initially. Then it will roll over into consumer applications."

And despite the growing confusion in this space, carriers need to form relationships with the companies developing these applications, Bricken advised. "At the same time, I don't think (carriers) will be marginalizing their services. They really do still have the end relationship with the customer."

Follow the Leader? Roberta Wiggins, Yankee Group director of wireless mobile communications, said that although workers are ready for horizontal applications such as wireless e-mail, corporations might not be prepared to spend the money yet.

"The vendors and carriers are pushing that approach - that vertical adoption has moved more horizontal - when in reality, most corporations are not ready for this," Wiggins said. "It is still driven very much by return on investment. (Corporations) aren't prepared to go past the point of pain. So it's much easier for them to justify implementation for, say, sales-force automation (SFA) for 150 salespeople than (wireless) e-mail for the whole company. That's where it's been for a while."

Looking back five or six years, the wireless-data market was very field-service driven, Wiggins said. Now, more applications such as SFA are emerging, and pushing white-collar adoption.

"Part of this is driven by greater usage of hand-held computers by these people," she said. "They are kind of driving up from below - they want to have wireless connectivity. E-mail, I've heard a lot of the vendors say, is justified by some vertical applications."

It becomes a serial process that begins with vertical applications for small groups within a company, and then moves on to include things such as wireless access to e-mail.

"Because e-mail has become so prevalent in the corporation, it's no longer acceptable for a mobile worker to be out of contact, on the road," Wiggins said.

Phil Redman, Gartner Group senior analyst, is even more bullish on horizontal applications.

"Without a doubt, e-mail and Internet access is the application that most enterprises are looking to install," Redman said. "I think within the next 12 to 18 months, most of the type-A aggressive enterprises will be offering some kind of e-mail integration over mobile phones, PDAs or specific devices like a Blackberry. Following that, you're looking at something like wireless CRMs. And on top of that will be the whole supply chain B2B business."

The ultimate goal is to expand the worker's desktop into the wireless world. What that "wireless desktop" looks like is any-body's guess today. As Redman noted, workers today use many devices to communicate, and those devices are beginning to support wireless-data applications as well. Many road warriors are leaving their laptops at the office and grabbing their PDAs instead. This trend seems to be leading to a merged device that will incorporate aspects of wireless handsets and PDAs. The Evans Data wireless-developer survey seems to support this prediction. When asked what device developers are working on applications for, the largest percentage said PDAs, but a close second was mobile phones, followed by laptops.

The development of wireless data is being directed by early adopter corporations, ASPs and carriers.

"Corporations will deal with one company for software solutions and the carrier for airtime," Wiggins said. "They may end up with ... a combination of dedicated data and cellular/PCS. New devices will come, and they'll be large and expensive at first. What's most important to the corporation is coverage and reliability. In the corporate world, we have the emergence of professional services, ASPs, middleware companies. And ultimately, they will be the ones that work with the end-user corporation and decide which is the best network technology. The carrier will still own the customer from the point of view of airtime, but the value-added aspects will be supported by a third party."

Field Focus One of those third-party entities is FieldCentrix, a company that provides field-service-automation systems by integrating software with wireless communications, rugged portable computers and the Internet.

There are more than seven million field-service technicians in the United States. But many still use pens, clipboards, pagers and wireless phones to do their jobs.

"Field service is the largest industry in the world that has not enjoyed the benefits of computer technology," said Judy Johnson, FieldCentrix senior vice president of marketing. "The reason is because field service is inherently based in the field - it's field-centric. There's a need for data both from a viewing and writing perspective in the field. But because you have a mobile worker, that capability has not existed. Our company was founded with the technology vision that wireless computing would therefore bring a capability to field-service workers they had not had before."

In 1996, FieldCentrix was the only field-service-automation company chosen to beta test the Microsoft Windows CE portable computing platform, Johnson said.

By nature, field-service technicians need robust mobile computing devices - capable of performing even when wireless coverage lapses. For this reason, FieldCentrix chose to work with a thick client like CE - where the database is resident on the device - over a thin client. This way, even when a field technician is out of coverage, he can still access and input information.

FieldCentrix helped Pacific Mechanical's 15 technicians become more productive in servicing large HVAC systems at Sears and Save-On Drugs stores. Using the Itronix T-5200, a rugged portable device that runs CE, technicians receive work orders wirelessly from a dispatcher. If the technician is out of coverage, the information is queued and ready when coverage picks up.

"The moment the technician steps into coverage, it is received," Johnson explained. "The technician can look at the history of the account and query that information, too, if it wasn't automatically sent by dispatch. Then, as he does the work, he makes notations."

Parts can be ordered and time is automatically stamped for billing purposes - nearly eliminating costly billing errors.

"If an invoice is off by as much as a dollar, it would get kicked back to Pacific Mechanical, and they would have to reconcile it," said Craig McCollum, vice president of sales. "That is a huge aspect that is a key component of return on investment for them."

All of the information is stored in an FX Service Center, a Field-Centrix database. These databases can be on- or off-site, depending on client needs.

Re-Engineering From the Bottom Up System integrator Stellcom has been around since 1984, making it a granddaddy in a field of toddlers. The company takes a broader approach than many, providing hardware and software for clients ranging from Cisco and Microsoft to Pacific Life Insurance and Mitchell Publishing.

Keith McIntyre, Stellcom chief technologist & vice president, predicts that early adopters will go for wireless e-mail, calendars and contacts, as well as SFA and CRM solutions.

"When you look at the mobile workforce, a lot of them are in the sales profession, and a lot of them are in the service-oriented professions," he said. " If you can make someone more efficient so they can find out about the next service call they have, or they can find out they have half an hour to find a client in their proximity, there's a real value-add there. The technologies that exist today allow for those types of solutions to be tested, put together and put into the field."

One such solution was created by Stellcom for Mitchell Publishing, which provides information to insurance and automotive companies for repair purposes.

"They first offered that information in print, then in CD-ROM, and we recently built a Web ASP model for them," said Bernhard Schroeder, Stellcom head of strategic direction and alliances. "And now we're building a completely new structure that will allow their information to be posted and hosted in such a way that it can be delivered to anyone, anywhere at any time."

The project will take six to 12 months to complete, he said. And Mitchell is hoping the new wireless platform will increase efficiency.

"They are betting the future on the fact that this type of information will need to be distributed to insurance adjusters and car-repair shops (who) are all going to be wired or unwired and need this information wherever they are," Schroeder said. "It's a rather large engagement for us. We've been working with them (on the Web ASP part) now for six to eight months. Now we are heading into the next phase to build their future (wireless) technology platform."

David Vs. Goliath There are many companies today offering SFA solutions, ranging in size from Oracle and Siebel Systems to smaller companies such as UpShot.com, an upstart ASP. And despite the size differential, these companies are competing head-to-head for customers, analysts say.

UpShot.com's customers include Pfizer and Hewlett-Pack-ard (HP).

"What HP was looking for was something they could get up and running fast," said Keith Raffel, Upshot.com CEO. "The competition said ... 16 months. We said we could do it in three weeks and did. In the CRM sphere, long deployment times are typical here. And what we are really offering is a way to do deployment much faster. Combining that with anytime, anywhere access is a potent 1-2 punch."

HP uses UpShot.com's service to deliver leads to field sales reps, and to follow through on those leads during the sales process, Raffel said.

Upshot.com is the company's name, as well as the name of its primary, Web-based service. In September, the company launched a new initiative - UpShot Everywhere - which enables wireless access to sales-management systems.

"If you need information about the latest sales activities and you were sitting on a deserted road in Nebraska, you could push some buttons on your cell phone and see what's going on," Raffel said.

UpShot Everywhere operates today on Palm Vs with modems, Palm VIIs and Web-enabled wireless phones, Raffel said.

The seeds of wireless data have just been planted in corporate America, and there's a lot of growth potential. The Yankee Group's Wiggins sees parallels with the consumer market. Just as each consumer is different, each company is unique, too.

"There is no one corporation," she said. "There are a lot of different corporations, different application requirements, readiness to adopt new technology. Some high-tech telecom companies have already moved ahead with testing new technologies and wanting to implement their workers, and others are still really struggling with it."

And IT departments will struggle with wireless applications just as they have with other technological advancements. But because companies have invested so heavily in IT, they will have to extend that investment into the wireless world.

"Once a worker leaves his desktop, that investment is worthless," Wiggins said.

However, with wireless-data applications, many forward-thinking companies are improving efficiency and gaining on the competition.

Company: BestTransport.com

Background: BestTransport.com is an ASP that provides an online transportation marketplace for shippers and carriers. Based in Columbus, OH, the company has 26 employees and is headed by CEO J. Vincent Ciroli.

Issue: "Because one shipper may deal with hundreds or thousands of carriers, the old process of using phone and fax was very much of a serial-type process," Ciroli said. "In other words, if they had a load to move, they'd have to pick up the phone or send a fax and wait for a reply. And, depending on if the load was accepted or rejected, it would have to go to the next one."

BestTransport.com streamlined this time-consuming process with a Web-based, real-time communications application. Wireless extension of that application was a natural progression.

"People can't be glued to a browser all day, waiting for information to come in."

Solution: EnvoyWorldWide's MessageBlaster with transmission over many wireless networks. Shippers post information on loads via MessageBlaster directly to carriers, who are then able to accept or reject the load, based on cost per mile and other factors. MessageBlaster allows users to choose their method of contact - e-mail, fax, phone, pager or wireless phone.

Benefit: "It takes an 8-hour process and compresses it, depending on how they use the tools we have, to two hours or a few minutes," Ciroli said. "... From the shipper's standpoint, they want to provide that freight to the lowest-priced carrier. They want to expose that load as fast as they can to that lowest-priced carrier, and then they want that lowest-priced carrier to respond. Many times, it's a matter of minutes or hours. To the extent that that carrier did not see that freight and didn't have an opportunity to respond, and that shipper has to go to the next expensive carrier, it has cost the shipper money in higher freight charges. To the extent that (a solution) like MessageBlaster can get that message out to them, that helps the shipper. On the flip side of that, you have carriers that have all this equipment and drivers that represent a huge, fixed cost. So they want to see as much freight as possible."

Company: Milgo Solutions

Background: Milgo services the data communications and telecommunications industries. Its engineers install and maintain complex, mission-critical information networks. Milgo also monitors and manages networks for clients from its headquarters in Florida.

Issue: Improve communications between headquarters and a staff of 300 field engineers.

"In the `old days' we basically had a paper system," said Jorge Perales, vice president of central support. "We would send them a page via fax with a phone number to call in. (Calling in) was not effective because it was taking too much of our planners' time to then have to communicate to the field engineer all the aspects of the pending job. Based on those requirements, we needed a way to get the actual text of a case to the engineer. That way they wouldn't have to call in."

Solution: Mobilesys' EtherPage application and Nextel I-1000 wireless phones.

"Using Nextel and the EtherPage was what we found most effective for us," Perales said. "It allowed us, from Clarify (a ticketing system) and then EtherPage, to send out the case information for the field engineer to his digital receiver, which is pretty much a phone, a digital alpha pager and a local 2-way communication device. He has all that immediately."

Transmissions are confined to three pages of 240 characters each, however the system can handle up to 16 pages per transmission if needed.

Benefit: "A lot of our business is based on providing immediate responses to our customers," Perales said. "Many times, circumstances keep the engineer from contacting the customer and giving them an ETA. Being able to have a communications device has certainly helped out. In many cases, that can be reassigned to an engineer that is closer to the job. And jobs change. A customer may change a requirement, and it's no longer needed. Now we can get that information to the field engineers. Because they're so mobile, they're in and out of range a lot. By being able to queue up the pages so they can retrieve them when they come into range has helped out as well. What happens is they get the information en route. It cuts down on wasted time."