Wireless and Mobility Defined (2)

Thursday, November 27th, 2008 at 6:45 am

The application of mobile devices and wireless technology to enable communication, information access, and business transactions from any device, from anyone, from anywhere, at anytime.

You may have noticed that this definition includes the word wireless. The key pieces of this definition here are that mobility and wireless can go together and are not necessarily separate entities. For an additional perspective, see Figure 1.1.

As Figure 1.1 illustrates, mobility solutions may include the delivery of applications for information sharing and networking such as accessibility to corporate e-mail or groupware applications through a mobile device instead of a desktop computer. These types of mobile applications are typically categorized as mobile office solutions. The most important point to remember about mobile solutions is that the device need not be constantly connected to a network or the Internet to provide value. The mobile office is a perfect example of a mobile application. Many of us in the consulting world typically carry laptops or some sort of mobile device. Probably one of the most heavily used applications on the desktop or the laptop is e-mail. The beauty of most e-mail applications today is that a wired connection is not required. You can type the e-mail, attach files, and create documents while sitting in a car, on a plane, almost anywhere! When a mail message is sent in disconnected mode, it typically is stored in a cached outbox or other temporary storage mechanism. Once the user logs on to his or her normal network connection, voilá, the e-mail is delivered to the intended recipient automatically! As you can see, e-mail is a great example of a mobile application. You can manage your e-mail and calendar anywhere and anytime, even without a network connection. E-mail generally falls into the mobile office category, along with word processing, spreadsheets, groupware, Web browsing, and many other applications. We’ll go into greater detail on the different types of mobile applications in Chapter 2. For now, let’s continue our discussion and define what we mean by wireless solutions and applications.

Taken From : Enterprise Guide to Gaining Business Value from Mobile Technologies