Industry Takes Note
CIOs feel that Indian enterprises are yet to experience the benefits of high-end mobile applications. It is essentially the lack of awareness of the benefits of enterprise mobile applications and the entire business mobility proposition in general, that is responsible for adoption rates being slow at present. Price is the other significant reason. Smart devices carry relatively higher price tags in the Indian marketplace.

Nokia however has addressed this aspect by making the smart devices available under the sub-12k range. These include the Nokia E50 and the E62. Such products at those pricing levels are likely to catalyze the enterprise usage and adoption of these devices, especially for the middle and junior level workforce. Some of the high-end device features like video conferencing would work much better with 3G networks though. 3G thus would lead to an increased adoption for enterprise mobility.

Olivier Ribet, a director at Microsoft said, "We have a little more than 1,300 gold certified partners just focused on mobility, who are developing applications for Windows mobile platform worldwide. They are also constantly making an effort to move all desktop applications to the windows mobile platform. Windows mobile is definitely being seeing as a platform to provide end-to-end solutions and not just an e-mailing."

"Some years ago, Blackberry was the only player to provide e-mail on the move. We came and said we know how to do e-mail better, hence we put outlook express on the mobile and moved the information to exchange server. Then we felt mobility was not just about e-mail," he added. According to Ribet, 60% of the windows mobile-enabled devices are being used for sales force and field force automation, along with a lot of CRM and ERP applications as well. "Enterprises want their sales guys to check inventories, and customer information, in real time, which can easily be done on a Windows Mobile platform," he says.

Nokia Enterprise Solutions division offers security solutions, apart from business-optimized devices, making it an end-to-end mobility player in the market. Their offerings include firewalls, VPN solutions, intrusion prevention systems, and Unified Threat Management.

Security is an integral part of business mobility solutions today. Security constitutes a key a component of Nokia's comprehensive business mobility portfolio and software like its Intellisync Mobile Suite and others that enable mobile applications such as email and enterprise voice.

For ensuring end-user satisfaction, Nokia had launched the exclusive "Eguru" program pertaining to enterprise devices. This program involves extensive training of Eguru's on the devices and applications so that they can in turn provide an enhanced customer experience.

Avaya is the first to implement and deploy enterprise FMC systems. For instance, extension to cellular capability allows an incoming call on the office PBX to ring simultaneously on the office extension and the mobile phone. When in office call can be picked up from office phone and when outside it can be picked from the mobile. The company, which has strategic alliances with Motorola, Nokia, and RIM for business needs, has also the broadest portfolio of products supporting mobile workers choices in devices and work modes.

Show Me the Money!
MEA is one of the hottest segments in India, or so it is dubbed to be. Companies are increasingly adopting enterprise applications for their core business activities. As per a research titled "Business Mobility and the Agile Organization: The quest for competitiveness", sponsored by Nokia with EIU in May 2007, with a view over the next two years; 41% respondents said their companies were likely to make greater use of remote network access; 34% said it will be customer relationship management; 21% said collaborative applications such as mobile groupware; and 17% said sales force automation.

Increasingly, activities in the field are regarded as central to the success of the business. No longer is mobility associated simply with capturing information in the field and bringing it back to the office for processing. "This underlines the huge opportunity that exists for the enterprise mobile applications segment in India, and globally as well. Nokia with its comprehensive line of over six enterprise devices has aggressive plans to capitalize on this opportunity," according to Chakrapani GK, country general manager, Nokia Enterprise Solutions.

The mobile employee is demanding more solutions to address a broader set of needs, and consequently spurring strong growth for the worldwide mobile enterprise application market. According to a recent IDC study, the mobile enterprise applications market reached $1.2 bn in 2005. As per IDC forecasts this market will grow to $3.5 bn in 2010, representing a compounded annual growth rate of 23%.

Service providers have to improve their data capabilities, and the handset manufacturers have to work upon the cost of the data enabled handsets. But more importantly the developer community has to come out of its prevalent inhibitions, and develop the cross platform applications. On top of all this, enterprise users have to come out of their present culture and adopt new applications that can change the way they work, something that they appear to have started working upon.

Baburajan K and Sandeep Budki
baburajank@cybermedia.co.in