Wireless IT Investment Triumphs Over Budgets

Network managers claim they would continue to invest in mobile Internet technologies despite IT budget cuts, according to a survey by Perimon. Nad Nadesan of Perimon says the results indicated the nervousness organizations feel about being left behind by rivals. But Ray Woabank, a Butler Group analyst, says it is important that businesses are realistic and think through their actual needs, and beware of being swept away by hype. "Major industry players are encouraging their customer base to move rapidly on mobile Internet strategies, as they did with [Wireless Application Protocol] WAP, but they're failing abysmally," says Woabank. "I think adoption of [General Packet Radio Service] GPRS will be far slower than many pundits are predicting."

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Mobileinfo Comments and Advisory: This report is confusing and sends out several conflicting messages. First of all, IT managers are willing to invest in wireless applications so long as they get value out of it. However, they are confused about long-time role of WAP. True, GPRS will help but WAP plus GPRS is not necessarily the long term architecture for mobile applications. WE think that it might be the reconstituted i-Mode on GPRS or 3G or some other incarnation of wireless web that will emerge during the next 12 months. Stay tuned.