Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Business At Hand

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 10:29:17 -0500

Business At Hand

With wireless carriers starting to push more aggressively into
enterprise services, a rising crop of multifunction phones aims more
squarely at business users. Now the challenge is convincing enterprises
these handsets mean business.
BY KAREN BROWN
MARCH 22, 2004
WIRELESS WEEK

Consumer-oriented phones may still dominate the marketplace, but signs
indicate that with a bigger push into enterprise services, U.S. wireless
carriers are looking for handsets that also get down to business.

A greater number of PDAs and smartphones, able to handle e-mail and
other business applications, are making their way into the market – and
into carriers' handset lineups. But it isn't a slam-dunk sell for
enterprise customers, who are still looking for bottom-line value beyond
wireless voice service.

While the consumer handset market explodes with an array of phones able
to take pictures, download ringtones and play games, a quieter parallel
trend is happening on the enterprise side for devices armed with mobile
work tools, according to Joe Fabris, Palm One's director of wireless
marketing.

Carriers "are really starting to get it. They are doing more and more
things and have their sales forces working harder and harder on closing
deals that are multiple devices," he says.

Growth In Sight There are indications the smartphone and PDA markets are
growing after a somewhat sluggish start. Gartner Group's worldwide
handset projections indicate sales of smart phones – defined as handsets
that are still voice-centric but capable of multitasking, with a
standards-based operating system – will jump from a little more than 8.5
million units sold in 2003 to more than 20 million by the end of this
year. By 2007, smartphone sales will head northward of 84 million,
according to Gartner's predictions.

Wireless tablet PDAs, meanwhile, will rise more steadily, from about 1.2
million in 2003 to 2 million this year. By 2007, that figure should hit
a little more than 6 million.

Palm already is seeing an increase in demand for its Treo 600 PDA phone,
which has gained several key U.S. deals. Cingular Wireless and AT&T
Wireless rolled out the Treo 600 handset In November, followed by
T-Mobile USA in February.
"What we are seeing right now is that we just can't make enough to
satisfy the demand, and big sales are coming through the carriers right
now," Fabris says.  "So the carriers are seeing it as an enterprise
play. They are asking us to build more and they are ordering more from
us."

E-mail, E-mail Applications also drive the handset design, and in the
enterprise world the ticket to the dance is e-mail, according to Fabris.
To that end, Treo's full keyboard is far more practical than using the
nine-digit phone pad for text entry, particularly when the enterprise
customer wants to use the device to save time and boost efficiency.

"That's a differentiator from other phones out there that have a regular
nine-keypad, where you really are not going to want to do a lot of
e-mail with that, nor a lot of browsing or any sort of text entry,"
Fabris says. "With the Treo full keyboard that you can really type with
and a screen you can really see and read your e-mail, that's a
differentiator for us."

Motorola's latest pair of smartphone designs also adds businesslike
features.  Based on the Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system, the
MPX and the more phone-centric MPX100 both offer direct synchronization
with Microsoft e-mail, word processing and spreadsheet applications. The
MPX in particular is a portable business machine, with a built-in QWERTY
keyboard and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi link capabilities to sync up with
e-mail or download attachments, says Michael Tatleman, vice president
and general manager of the MotoPRO products group.  Closed, it can be
used for phone functions, and when opened users can access the keyboard
and horizontal screen for e-mail and document applications.

"The MPX is absolutely unique. Nobody has ever seen a device that opens
both in portrait and landscape mode," Tatleman says. "We didn't do that
just because it was cool. We did it because you want to be able to have
it in the landscape mode for a great e-mail experience and you also want
to have it in portrait mode so you can open the phone and use it as a
phone."
The MPX 100, meanwhile, is a more phone-centric candy bar design with an
add-on QWERTY keyboard available. It still allows the same e-mail and
messaging capabilities but is aimed at a user who wants phone function
primarily, Tatleman says.
The MPX and MPX 100 will be available in the second half of the year,
but Motorola is not specifying in which markets it will appear first.
Tatleman did say the rollout would be nearly simultaneous in the world
market regions.

One reason Motorola is developing products based on the Microsoft
operating system is its direct integration with Microsoft desktop
systems, which dominate much of the business world. "It provides not
only a familiar experience from a client side but a seamless experience
from an IT side," Tatleman says.

Tatleman also agrees that E-mail is the prime business applications
focus now, "but after that you will start to see across vertical
industries lots of different applications – PocketPC-based applications,
transportation logistics, customer care, health care, extension of
office applications like field force automation, sales force
automation," he says.

Meanwhile, enterprise-oriented Nextel Communications' phone lineup now
includes phones with business features and rugged designs. While not a
smartphone, the i730 offers several business-oriented features,
including an advanced calculator and navigation tools such as location
and step-by step driving directions. An airplane mode feature also
allows the user to turn off the network connection while still accessing
programs, calendar and voice record applications.

Nextel also offers a Research In Motion BlackBerry handset with paging
and PDA capabilities as well as a full keyboard, and the i305, a rain
resistant handset for users who are literally in the field much of the
time.

"The Nextel core target customer has traditionally been the business
'high-value' customer and this is true whether you are talking about the
mobile professional looking for a phone like the i730 or a field service
professional using the i305," says Blair Kutrow, Nextel's vice president
of product management. "Nextel looks to provide high-value products and
services for both customer segments and always looks to offer handsets
aimed at both segments – as well as specific handsets that could easily
work for both environments simultaneously."

The idea of a phone aimed at enterprise customers also comes into play
for mobile enterprise applications providers, including InfoWave
Software. In its hunt for enterprise customers, InfoWave saw the need
for products interfacing with smartphones, so it built that capability
into its new Telispark Mobile Enterprise 2.5 platform.

"As for smartphones, normally when we get RFPs, there is a check box in
there –do you support smart phones?" says Leah Gabriel, director of
marketing for InfoWave.

Some enterprise sectors will continue to use custom built, data driven
wireless devices, but Gabriel does see a benefit for some in switching
to the more voice-centric smartphone option.

"When you look at it, the more ruggedized devices – the devices you are
using in the field – those are pretty expensive," Gabriel says. "The
smartphones that are targeted at the mobile end user are actually
cheaper than the ruggedized devices."
The Sell But giving enterprise customers a compelling enough reason to
buy into
such devices is still an issue. A less-expensive device doesn't always
attract a market if it doesn't offer the applications that a business
needs, according to Matt DiMarco, senior vice president of business
development and marketing at fellow mobile enterprise applications
provider Everypath.

"It's very different than coming out with a handset that is appealing
for voice applications for the general population," he notes. "Companies
have very specific business issues within a given industry – and even
within a given company – and the ability to get and execute a value
proposition that is customer specific, addresses a real business need
and so forth, is the challenge."
Motorola, meanwhile, can pitch its MPX smartphones as a less expensive
option to laptop computers for traveling employees, Tatleman notes. But
he says the more compelling value is in giving employees continuous
access to e-mail, scheduling, documents and voice when they are on the
road. Extending that to include customer care applications and field
force automation makes the argument even stronger, he adds.

"The fact that you can do those things on single converged devices – and
by the way in the case of the walkie-talkie functionality some of these
things also converge with dispatch – you really are extending the
existing model out to mobility," Tatleman says.

Overall, selling businesses on these multifunction handsets comes down
to the right combination of hardware and applications that will offer a
real business case, rather than just a pricey toy.
"It has to be valuable," says Gartner wireless analyst Michael King.
"The old tried-and-true metrics of convenience and immediacy – that's
pretty hard to measure in terms of an ROI. So I think if you build
something valuable that helps people become more efficient – and you can
measure those efficiencies –then you definitely will have people lining
up to use it."

http://www.wirelessweek.com/article/CA404834?text=nextel%5C&stt=001
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