Vikram R SriHari, CIO, Guardian Lifecare, feels that enterprises are looking for three things from mobile applications: high quality, reliability and availability. At present, Indian enterprises have lots of basic applications, which are not up to the mark. Over a period of time, a large number of enterprises are expected to move up the value-chain to high-end applications.

"The demand should start from the enterprise policy of offering the best solutions to customers. It's easy to blame our service providers and application companies. But the real action should come from within the enterprises for this kind of innovation. The next level of mobile applications should involve systems that can offer real-time knowledge to managers, along with solutions, as and when an internal policy is broken by someone in the enterprise," he added.

Avaya India did a survey on what mobility means to employees and the IT directors in the country. According to the findings, simplicity for employees means single number, voice mail and directory, enterprise data access (email, intranet), consistent user capabilities, taking control of communications and choice of devices.

Seventy-one percent of employees in India carry two or more devices on most days, while 18% employees pick up an important message late, more than once a day. Various reasons for mobility include: 47% satisfying customers and never missing deals; 27% not being tethered to your desk; and 63% employees agree that telecommuting improves sense of work/life balance.

	"In the US, there are some six aggregators or so, whereas India is yet to see one"
	-Shekhar Kirani, VP, Verisign Services India
	"Enterprises are looking for three things from mobile applications: high quality, reliability, and availability"
	-Vikram R SriHari, CIO, Guardian Lifecare
	"There is huge opportunity that exists for the enterprise mobile applications segment in India"
	-Chakrapani GK, country general manager, Nokia Enterprise Solutions

Simplicity for IT directors mean single applications and network infrastructure, reporting and accounting, consistent management and control policies, control of mobile devices, and choice of solutions supporting mobile workers.

According to the survey, IT directors feel 54% of employees cost are facilities based, while 60% of mobile phone calls are made from within a building. 48% of Indian employees feel companies are wary that telecommuting may mean loss of control. And, too many technologies such as Bluetooth, 802.11 a/b/g, WiMax, CDMA, WCDMA, TD-CDMA, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA, HSUPA are in place.

Fifty-seven percent of employers fall short of meeting employees' mobility needs, while 38% of employees aware of others using unapproved devices and software, the Avaya India survey said.

Supply Gaps and Costs
The current applications are limited to mainly push and pull services through predefined four-digit numbers. It is a good start, but the time has come to take mobile usage to next level.

Enterprise mobile applications are in demand in developed countries and hence India too should see lots of action. But the main issue that the Indian marketplace is likely to face will be the lack of system integrators in the country who can guide enterprise organizations on the integration of mobile and workflow. "In the US, there are some six aggregators or so, whereas India is yet to see one," Shekhar Kirani, VP, Verisign Services India, said.

Among the major challenges in India are the myths concerning enterprise mobility, and thus there is a potential need to educate the market. Other reasons being the device and communication costs of sophisticated mobile devices for enterprise apps. Prices still are the major barrier for India to enter into mobility. Many have tried using consumer phones for business applications but most have failed to provide a workable solution on such end devices.

There are a lot of the companies that want to mobilize their existing applications, and there are others that want new mobile applications developed from scratch. In the case of the former, Sybase products like OneBridge, M-business Anywhere and Unwired Accelerator, which are patented technologies, enable discretionary mobilization, which means that the application that you see on your devices is a pro-mobile version of the application at the back end. The advantage being that the training involved for the end user is minimal.

In the latter case, we have seen a lot of application developers go the mobile way in recent times. With enterprise mobility catching up, more application developers are realizing the potential of the market and this will result in a definite growth in quantity and quality of applications to choose from. "Our products like PocketBuilder and Workspace provide flexible solutions for application developers," says Jagannathan of Sybase.