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Editorial
(September
7, 2001)
From
Publisher and Managing Editor's
Desk...
Opinion - Continuously Evolving Landscape in IT - Where is
Wireless/Mobile Computing Going?
This week, HP and Compaq decided to
merge to create the second largest computer company. Properly
executed, the merged company could spur the mobile revolution to
some extent. A couple of days back, Motorola announced a
breakthrough technology - creating a new semiconductor material by
combining light-emitting Gallium Arsenide semiconductors with
silicon integrated circuits on a single chip. Both Motorola and
Ericsson recently decided to license its handset technology to
others so that they can concentrate on their core strengths. Palm
and Handspring informed FCC that they will introduce a new breed of
always-on devices soon. While NTT DoCoMo confirmed that they will go
ahead with October 1st launch of its 3G network FOMA, Cingular and
AT&T were more modest with their announcement of GPRS network
availability in selected areas.
These news flashes constitute plenty
of fodder for those of us who publish technology news. Yet, news on
the economic front is more somber. Consumers are cautious and
enterprises are regulating carefully their capital expenditure on
new projects including mobile initiatives. While we would like to
publish more customer case studies and large scale roll outs of
mobile applications, vendors are unable to feed enough
implementation stories, except licensing agreements or partnerships.
Is this a cause for concern? Yes, it
is. Should we be overwhelmed by this concern? Not really. Instead,
we should look for fundamental trends and introduce structural
changes in our organizations that will produce economies, reduce
internal costs and provide real value to our customers. Wireless and
mobile computing industry is still in its infancy. There is a lot of
room to exploit this technology for increased productivity in the
enterprise. However, this will come only through proven methods of
systematic planning, business case justification, architecture
development , design, selection of right products and sound project
management - basically good systems engineering principles. As for
the dreams of wireless operators and network infrastructure vendors,
we shall only say that your growth will happen gradually but surely
as new generation of consumers become dependent on your services and
acquire the spending power that you need. Please do not use
simplistic methods of demand determination - we mean straight line
projection of short-term trends or forecasts of market research
companies who do allow for macro-economics, human psychology of
habit formation, competing methods of entertainment and realistic
time table for infrastructure implementation to support it. How will
the gas companies sell gasoline if there are lots of standard-shift
cars but very few paved roads and older drivers still prefer walking
to driving?
For your comments, click
here.
Chander
Dhawan - Your Site's Principal Consultant and Publisher
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