TRENDS
Mobilized workforces are significantly increasing productivity at many large U.S. and European companies, according to CIOs and telecommunications directors interviewed by Coleman Parkes. Those enterprises plan to increase their investment in both mobile devices and mobile application usage, providing a growing number of management and staff with mobile devices equipped to access corporate data and applications.
Those interviewed also expect to dramatically increase their use of applications such as voice over IP (VoIP), instant messaging and picture/video messaging. With this growth, they say, improved mobile device management is a key priority to support mobilizing the workforce and to improve the productivity levels of mobile workers.
Mobile device-management vendor Mformation Technologies sponsored the survey. Key findings:
- Among U.S. enterprises, 56 percent reported increased usage of smart mobile devices among managers, and 60 percent reported increases in staff usage.
- Surveyed businesses are set to significantly increase the use of new mobile applications such as sales force applications and company file-share systems.
- By 2009, these enterprises will significantly expand the rollout of mobile VoIP (from 27 to 70 percent), instant messaging (from 58 to 80 percent), push-to-talk (from 35 to 55 percent), and picture/video messaging (from 35 to 63 percent).
- Eighty-one percent of respondents report significant productivity increases from current mobile investments, with more than one-third reporting increases higher than 20 percent.
- Four-fifths of CIOs interviewed look for improved management of mobile devices, applications and data to accelerate the productivity trend.
“We’ve reached the point in the market where mobile business applications are tried and tested and now people are really starting to use them,” comments Matt Bancroft, chief marketing officer, Mformation. “However, this raises an interesting challenge for CIOs in terms of management and security. For example, they’ll need to start thinking about how to deploy applications, patches and updates over the air.”
Smart phones and mobile applications are becoming strategic corporate assets, according to the study. Fifty-seven percent of managers in U.S. enterprises already use company-supplied smart mobile devices regularly. Comparatively, only about 31 percent of U.S. employees below manager level at the firms surveyed currently use these devices. Companies also anticipate growth rates of mobile applications to increase as much as 37 percent annually.
“Smart phones are fast becoming as important to the business user as laptops,” Bancroft says.
With sophisticated computer systems installed in tanks and other equipment, the U.S. military is emphasizing protection of its data networks as well as the troops. As one example, battlefield vehicles are now being supplied with firewalls for network security–the MESHnet firewall developed by General Dynamics Canada and Secure Computing. MESHnet features Secure Computing’s first evaluation assurance Level 4, common criteria-certified firewall, ruggedized to military standards.
“The confidentiality of communications between armored vehicles is crucial to soldiers’ safety and the success of their mission,” says Rick Bracken of General Dynamics Canada.
Network-centric operations require data to be shared between brigades, coalitions and even civil authorities. Advanced application-layer firewalls successfully protect networks by monitoring data flow to ensure only authorized data is exchanged, and to detect and prevent intrusion attempts and viruses embedded in data flow. In tactical environments, the exchange of sensitive, classified data is essential, making the need for firewalls even more pronounced.
The MESHnet Firewall platform runs Secure Computing’s Sidewinder firewall, which provides the following features necessary for this type of deployment:
- the performance, scalability and network protection needed by units deployed on the tactical mobile battlefield;
- application-layer protection to protect against threats contained at the application level versus just the network level (70 percent of all attacks occur at the application layer today); and
- intrusion-prevention capability, as well as integration with the TrustedSource global reputation system, to provide proactive protection from known and unknown (zero-hour) threats.
The nirvana of videoconferencing is far from a reality in most enterprises today, according to Forrester Research. In addition, vendors have made designing a coherent strategy difficult. “Among today’s market leaders, only TANDBERG and Polycom stress their commitment to open standards and to full interworking with any SIP-based unified communications solution,” says Forrester analyst Phil Sayer. “Other vendors with high-end telepresence systems use proprietary technology that runs on closed networks.”
According to Sayer, HP’s Halo is essentially a world that is closed to other unified communications endpoints. Teliris says its managed service can interoperate today with HP’s Halo and Polycom’s RPX, and that it plans to do so with Cisco’s TelePresence system. Its view, however, is that “unified communications is a pipedream.”
From Teliris’ minimum price of $164,000 to a Halo system at $425,000, all the major manufacturers put six-figure price tags on their systems.
“At these prices, Forrester expects that adoption will be limited to small numbers of senior management or board-level systems,” Sayer says. “Other vendors seem to agree and plan to disrupt the market.”
Among those disrupters is LifeSize, which specializes in systems that consist of an HD screen, a conference phone, and an HD camera and codec–at a cost of $8,000 to $12,000.
Microsoft’s RoundTable system is designed to integrate with Office Communications Server 2007 and LiveMeeting 2007. “At an expected retail price of about $3,000,” suggests Sayer, “it has the potential to change the entire videoconferencing market.”
Finally, TANDBERG is aiming its Movi at mobile and home workers. Movi works over internal LANs or externally over a corporate VPN. “This will enable enterprises to rapidly and widely deploy desktop videoconferencing over the Internet to remote workers, with no impact on phone bills,” Sayer says.
Communications cure
The University of Colorado Hospital’s new medical campus has installed a hybrid IP/TDM telephony communications network from NEC Unified Solutions. The network provides the hospital with enhanced patient care and accommodates the future growth of Colorado’s largest medical services and research facility. “The medical campus represents the University of Colorado’s vision for the future of healthcare,” says Joe Bajek, director of information technology at the hospital. “We look forward to leveraging these communications capabilities to further enhance our patient experience.”
Faster, faster
Volvo Financial Services has selected Blue Coat ProxySG appliances to provide WAN optimization for its branch and regional offices. The appliances accelerate business-critical applications, provide Web security to stop malicious and unwanted traffic and enable policy control and reduction of bandwidth consumption. The first implementation is between Volvo’s offices in Aurora, Ontario, Canada, and Greensboro, N.C. “The appliances provide a new way of thinking about WAN optimization,” says Shannon Muncy, network services manager at Volvo Financial Services. “We can have visibility and control of what goes over the WAN and can accelerate a full range of business applications.”
Wireless medicine
Duke University Medical Center has selected ADC’s wireless Digivance indoor coverage solution to provide wireless coverage inside its hospitals. The wireless system was custom-tailored to fit the university’s needs for a flexible architecture that leverages the center’s existing fiber infrastructure, minimizes the amount of additional hardware it needs to install and offers the least invasive solution. The system’s plug-and-play architecture allows solution growth as the campus radio frequency coverage expands to new areas. The distributed antenna system also augments wireless coverage within hospital buildings, while minimizing the risk of interference with medical equipment.
Flywheel backup
Composite flywheel technology from Pentadyne Power is in use with a UPS system at California’s Norman Y. Mineta San Jos International Airport. The airport serves the Silicon Valley and greater San Francisco Bay area. The system is operating in parallel with a redundant set of UPS batteries. In this configuration, the Pentadyne system is the first line of defense against all power issues, isolating the batteries from any such events. The only time the batteries would be used is in the event of a problem with the Pentadyne system or the backup generator.
Mobile Business Expo, Oct. 22-25, New York, provides information on how to build and connect a mobile workforce and leverage wireless technology.www.mobilebusinessexpo.com
Interop, Oct. 22-26, New York, gives the big picture regarding business technology and strategy, with speakers, educational programs, workshops and live demonstrations and presentations.www.interop.com
CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment 2007, Oct. 23-25, San Francisco, focuses on integrating wireless data technologies in the enterprise and vertical business markets.
www.ctia.org
CIPTUG Annual Conference, Oct. 29-Nov. 1, Austin, Texas, offers an interactive program to the global IP communications community regarding Cisco unified communications and its complementary applications and services.
www.ciptug.org
IT Infrastructure Management, Nov. 6-9, Las Vegas, explores the complexities of managing the IT infrastructure for reliable IT service.
www.itim2007.com
Windows Server 2008 for Dummies, by Ed Tittel, covers installation and configuration basics, day-to-day administrative tasks, active directory, IIS and networking, while giving information on new features and enhancements.
www.wiley.com
Optimizing and Testing WLANs, by Tom Alexander, is a guide to WLAN tests and measurements. Also discussed are industry standards and the necessary hardware, test and measurement configurations; how to conduct tests and measurements; and the interpretation of results.www.newnespress.com