Over the past decade, wireless networks, devices, and applications were developed to support the most basic enterprise applications, such as voice, email, ordering, and tracking. These developments were largely independent of the enterprise applications on the wireline side, which were expanding to support broadband access to Intranet and Internet applications. The next decade will witness the integration of wireline and wireless applications, enabled by new technologies such as IMS, 3G networks, smart phones, and WiMAX devices.
This report will provide a detailed analysis of the wireless technologies, application platforms, and workforce trends that will accompany this integration. Mobility convergence and IP convergence will be examined, along with fixed-mobile convergence, IMS, and content services. Insight will examine a number of vertical industries and markets that have provided early examples of these integrated applications. The research study will also provide forecasts of wireline and wireless service demand for these applications, as well as the demand by enterprise application and vertical industry.
Report Excerpt
1.1 The Rise of the Mobile Enterprise
Over the past 50 years, industries have grown and firms have consolidated around large, fixed facilities where functions and business processes could be co?located. That model of centralized industrial efficiency is now being rendered obsolete by the transformative power of ubiquitous broadband wireless communications.
In the past, verbal and visual communication in the workplace assumed physical co?location;
In only a short time, the idea of a pervasive mobile workforce went from being years away to being close at hand. As shown by the following facts, many of the big-ticket technological and regulatory limitations that a few years ago may have made widespread mobility unrealistic are now gone:
· Broadband data speeds have reached 90 percent of business establishments.
· Wireless broadband is available in all major metropolitan areas.
· Mobile voice services have saturated all industries.
· Mobile and wireline prices have dropped rapidly with the elimination of usage charges and the adoption of subscription-
Deploying a mobile workforce requires that a number of elements come together to make these workers effective in the field:
· mobile services — wireless, broadband;
· devices — cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), notebooks, wireless cards;
· service control — management of wireline, wireless, office/remote access in a seamless service offering;
· enterprise applications — the business processes that are automated through mobile access; and
· business application platforms — the foundations and interfaces for building enterprise applications over a converged wireless and wireline network.
In this study, INSIGHT analyzed each of these five elements as prerequisites for extending mobility to enterprise applications. To deliver mobile applications to users requires a complex interaction of customized software, server and data center middleware, and networks. Our study focuses on the value of the applications that traverse the networks; we do not attempt to quantify the value of the software applications, per se. Our objective is to provide an analysis of the various types of applications that traverse carrier networks and the value of those applications to the carrier in such a way that carriers can focus their marketing initiatives towards the fastest growing vertical and horizontal applications.
1.2 Evolution of a Mobile Workforce
To fully appreciate the emergence of the mobile workforce, it is important to understand how the US workforce is changing and how mobile technology can affect these changes. Fifteen years ago, the analysis of a mobile workforce would be limited by employer reluctance to support remote workers, while the technology to support mobile workers outside of the office was also limited.
Over the past 15 years, these limitations have been eliminated. Employers are now actively promoting the expansion of their mobile workforce and technology is enabling continuous communication with employees outside of the office. Of note are a number of statistics sited in a study by the Telework Coalition:
· 89 of the top 100 US companies offer telecommuting;
· 58 percent of companies consider themselves a virtual workplace;
· only nine percent of employees worked at headquarters;
· 67 percent of all workers used mobile and wireless computing.
At a more fundamental level, the US is in the midst of a transition from a manufacturing economy to a services economy, which has caused a redistribution of employment. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projections for 2012 show a growth of 15 million new jobs over 2005, with virtually all of the growth occurring in the services sector.
For more information, please visit :
http://www.bharatbook.com/
