NEW YORK-The disjointed approach of the diverse players involved in mobile data communications is a major hindrance to their ability to capitalize on the potential of the corporate enterprise market, which could total $29 billion worldwide by 2006, a new Ovum report concluded.
Cellular and PCS carriers so far have focused their marketing efforts primarily on consumer services, while largely ignoring the huge opportunity to connect mobile workers to their enterprise databases, said the London-based consulting firm whose U.S. headquarters is in Boston. This is particularly shortsighted on the part of wireless operators seeking to monetize their investments in 2.5- and third-generation networks before the mass market for mobile data becomes widespread.
“Those that lose enterprise customers to their competitors will be at a significant disadvantage. … (However), mobile operators have under-developed channels to enterprise customers, and they lack the corporate IT expertise needed to offer a viable end-to-end solution,” Ovum said.
Its report, “Mobile Internets: Towards the Wireless Enterprise,” draws conclusions from profiles of 27 companies, including four cellular and PCS carriers: AT&T Wireless Group, BT Cellnet, Nextel Communications Inc. and Verizon Wireless.
“Consumers don’t worry about application integration, systems management or service level agreements. Enterprises do,” said Jessica Figueras, lead author of the report.
“Wireless network operators must make it easy for businesses to make wireless data connectivity an integral part of their enterprise infrastructure, and they must offer them decent customer support.”
Companies have a longstanding interest in solutions that handle multiple mobile communications requirements, using a variety of wireless devices and network connections for ubiquitous access to primary business applications in which they have invested, Ovum said.
“Wireless network operators tend to be keen on online-only solutions. Unsurprisingly, these involve the use of lots of expensive airtime,” Figueras said.
“On the other hand, application vendors are keen for their customers to access their applications in any way that allows the full functionality to be retained, which rules out the use of many simple mobile devices.”
The lack of cohesion among different wireless players and their lack of understanding of each other causes confusion among potential enterprise customers. Often, business customers are told they must buy into the particular set-up an individual supplier supports, regardless of whether it fully meets their needs. Because the enterprise service market is immature and the supply web for wireless data is large and complicated, systems integrators are well positioned to tap early opportunities for assembling total solutions out of diverse technologies, products and services.
“Employee mobility is the norm today, but organizations still treat it as an expensive exception in terms of technologies used to support it,” Figueras said.
“Wireless data has an important role to play in solving these problems … (of) workers simply cut off from the enterprise backbone … but it will be no solution until it can be integrated within mainstream corporate IT.”
Ovum recommended that wireless operators, consultants and wireless application service providers develop partnerships among themselves to serve the enterprise market. The research firm emphasized that, today, many of these players are unfamiliar with each other.
“There are currently two market forces, not one, which are driving the evolution of the wireless enterprise. One is focused on delivering enterprise applications to mobile computing devices; the other is focused on delivering data services to voice-centric handsets over cellular networks,” Ovum said.
“These forces are starting to converge, however, and this convergence is playing a major role in driving the growth in the wireless enterprise market opportunity.”
