Special Report PC World's Enterprise Technology: Real Wireless on the Go

Wireless handhelds can help your company gather critical data from people in the field, but only if the devices are used properly. Here are three examples of how to do it right.

Eric Knorr

Selecting equipment for an enterprise-scale company has never been easy. There's the technology itself to worry about, for starters--meaning, will it perform as advertised? But in a medium-size to large business, you have other concerns too: Will the new equipment integrate with existing systems? Will it be costly to maintain? Will it scale to meet demand? Most critically, will it serve current and future business objectives? Starting this month, PC World casts a critical eye on hardware, software, and services that target the large corporate client, in order to answer such questions. Each month, Enterprise Technology will scout for e-business products that pay off in profits, productivity, cost reduction, or strategic advantage. We hope you find the new section useful. Send us your comments.

The problem with palmtop computers is that they're throwbacks, really. Just as desktop PCs were once maverick, unnetworked little islands of information, today's ubiquitous Palms, Handsprings, Pocket PCs, and similar devices have snuck into the enterprise through the back door--and they remain mostly deaf to its servers and systems. No one has yet invented a wire long enough to tether them to the corporate network.

No one needs to. Over the next few years, managers and experts say, wireless communications will lasso these last vestiges of stand-alone computing and drag them into the enterprise. In today's post-Web-boom era, no one suggests investing in wireless fantasy projects. But where there's a chance for real benefit, exploring wireless options today can help prepare for a future when handhelds join the front line of business information systems.

Taking to the Air

A few forward-looking companies have already made the move. For example, Flexjet's Jon Maxfield, manager of owner services, uses wireless Palm VIIs to collect data from passengers who fly aboard the company's time-share private jets. Pam Bryson at Ingram Micro, the big computer supply house, offers key customers Web-enabled cell phones to use in placing and tracking orders.

What unites these pioneers is their willingness to employ palmtops and the wireless Web to gather or disseminate time-sensitive data. Of course, pioneer is probably the right word. As anyone who has used a wireless device to tap the Internet knows, performance tends to be slow, connections get dropped, and even the most spacious palmtop screen reveals only about a thirtieth of the information a typical desktop monitor can display.

Yet the demand for connectivity is increasing. By 2004, International Data Corporation predicts, the United States will be home to 55 million mobile and remote workers, defined as those who spend more than 20 percent of their time away from the office. That's a 41 percent jump from today's figure of 39 million. Meanwhile, the pace of business--as well as the pace of business data flow--continues to accelerate. These factors ratchet up the pressure on device manufacturers, wireless providers, and corporations to devise better access for on-the-go people.

For most companies, the first step in improving access is to use the Palm and its brethren for e-mail. The RIM BlackBerry wireless e-mail appliance has attracted almost a cult following among mobile managers; the Palm VII and even the Handspring Visor and Microsoft Pocket PC outfitted with wireless modems have attracted users as well (for a hands-on critique of devices and service providers, see "Take a Walk on the Wireless Side").

But though e-mail promises immediate benefits, it doesn't bring handhelds fully into the fold. Neither do wireless LANs, also in their infancy, even though short-range protocols like Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11 promise high-bandwidth wireless within company walls (see "Bluetooth Brings Cable-Free Networking to Small Devices," in January's Top of the News.

Reality Check

To get meaningful mileage out of wireless handhelds, your company must have an urgent need to transmit up-to-the-minute enterprise data to or from customers, suppliers, or employees in the field--information that can't wait for a landline connection. Don't expect a return on the investment anytime soon (though at least one of the firms profiled here expects to show a profit right away). Currently, the technology is too new and the systems are too experimental to justify themselves based on ROI. Still, if your company is likely to need this technology when wireless data systems mature in a few years, now is a good time to start an experimental pilot project. That way, you'll be ready to exploit the technology fully when it catches up with demand.

Be prepared for obstacles, however--especially the bandwidth problem. A lucky few companies whose employees fall within the limited coverage area of Ricochet's wireless service can enjoy a wireless data transfer rate of 128 kbps for about $80 per remote unit per month. That's twice the speed you'd get from an ordinary dial-up connection, though it's well short of the high-speed bandwidth that most businesses employ for desktops. The next-best option is a Cellular Digital Packet Data service of the type that AT&T Wireless and OmniSky offer; these connections can reach speeds of up to 19.2 kbps. Failing that, you will have to accept the more conventional wireless data transfer rate--which runs around 9.6 kbps.

Authorities disagree about the best architecture for corporate wireless applications. One camp, which includes Brad Wilson, vice president of product marketing for Epiphany, a company that sells customer relationship management (CRM) software, argues that the handheld client should be as small as possible. "All of Epiphany's products are browser-based, so it's pretty trivial for us to go wireless. We've always had a paper-thin HTML interface," Wilson explains.

The other camp argues for a wireless version of the old client-server model, in which the remote device can continue to function when connectivity is lost. "Take sales-force automation," says David Finder, director of strategic alliances for mobile software developer Centura. "When salespeople have connectivity, they can be accessing inventory in real time, placing orders in real time. But if there isn't connectivity, they can keep working"--if they have a full-featured client application installed on their handheld computers. In cases where mobile personnel must input multiple pages of information, a "fat" client can batch that data and transmit it all in a single wireless burst.

To help you decide the best approach for your circumstances, we surveyed three companies that use wireless handhelds, plus a fourth that has adopted a more conventional wired approach. We also diagrammed two typical installations (for Flexjet and Ingram Micro). These examples remain in the pilot stage, but they're working well for the companies involved, and they point the way toward more comprehensive solutions to come.

Jet-Fast Customer Feedback

Flexjet sells private jets--shares in them, actually. A subsidiary of Bombardier Aerospace, which manufactures Learjets, Dallas-based Flexjet has catered to the rich--and in some cases the famous--since 1995, selling what amount to flexible time-shares on private aircraft. In a typical package, a customer pays $1.5 million up front for one-eighth of a Learjet 60, plus $11,000 per month for maintenance and $1870 per hour of flight time. In return, the customer can fly anyone anywhere in the contiguous 48 states, on as little as 4 hours' notice.

Given that sky-high tab, Flexjet has to keep its customers happy. But Maxfield, owner services manager, was not content with the firm's existing method of surveying customer satisfaction, which involved having crews leave a voice-mail report after each flight. Crew time was expensive, the administrative time required to transcribe the report was not productive, and the quality of the data was questionable because the customer was not responding directly.

In late 1999, Justin Lacey, Flexjet's director of business planning and development, decided to deploy wireless Palm VIIs to handle this job. When a flight landed, he wanted the survey information transferred immediately; that way, if anything was amiss, the passengers could be contacted--and compensated or otherwise appeased--promptly.

A company called NHand Solutions, an Austin, Texas-based developer of handheld software, got the contract to build the survey application. The firm couldn't write it for the Palm VII's proprietary Web Clipping environment, which demands a continuous wireless connection--obviously not possible in flight. Instead, the company created a simple Palm OS application that batches survey responses and dumps them into an e-mail message that gets transmitted wirelessly after the flight touches down. Then, at the receiving end, a script parses the data and imports it into Flexjet's SQL database (see the diagram). A simple content management system allows managers to revise the survey periodically, although the task of updating individual handhelds still requires a manual download.

The system cost roughly $50,000 to develop, and Lacey expects to break even within 18 to 24 months, thanks to a reduction in administrative costs. The real benefit, however, is in customer retention. If immediate feedback and redress keeps just one high-flying customer from jumping ship, the system has paid for itself. Next wireless project: Flexjet may implement its Web-based flight reservation system on Palm VII handhelds, which would help simplify the real-time challenge of juggling travel plans for 550 owners of 110 aircraft on short notice.

Mobile Order-Taking

The financial health of Ingram Micro, the world's largest computer distributor, rests with the tens of thousands of resellers that actually market the products Ingram supplies. The resellers range from big chains like CompUSA to small, so-called value-added resellers (VARs) that serve niche markets. Ingram works hard to help them move product.

Last fall, for example, Ingram launched Partnership America, a Web exchange for VARs that serve the education and government markets. By December, it had set up 20 storefronts on the Web to function as commerce service providers so the VARs' customers could order Ingram products directly online.

The logical next step was to go wireless. So Pam Bryson, Ingram's vice president of business development, called on wireless application provider Brience to create an e-commerce system accessible by Palm devices as well as by cell phones that use the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), a specification enabling a secure wireless data connection. Using a simple main menu, Partnership America customers can compare product prices, check on availability, place an order, and track its status until the goods arrive (for details, see the illustration). To jump-start the program, Sprint gave away 50 WAP phones to preferred VARs, who passed them along to key customers.

Technologically, the most interesting part of the system is something Brience calls its Experience Delivery Server (EDS). When a page request comes in, this server detects the type of device used to submit it--phone, PDA, or regular desktop browser--and delivers the page accordingly. The mix of technology means that customers can use different modes of access for different purposes. If they need to place lengthy or detailed orders, for example, they'll probably stick with the desktop. But for other purposes, the wireless network offers a convenient alternative. "If you're a technology buyer," Bryson explains, "you're going to place a lot of repeat orders. And it's easy for you to go in [on a PDA or phone] and type the SKU numbers or order numbers you'd like to look up." To address the problem of dropped connections, Brience keeps the input screens small and simple so the task can be finished in a few minutes--minimizing the user's risk of losing the link and having to start over.

Building the Future

For Buildscape, an e-commerce portal that serves the construction industry, the challenge was not the restrictions of wireless but the limitations of its clientele's work habits. Buildscape offers a Web-based supply-ordering service for home builders and lumberyards. The builders can create their own home pages complete with customized materials lists for quick ordering. The suppliers are charged a small percentage (negotiated individually) of whatever they sell through the system. But Buildscape CEO Steve Wilson knew that builders spend about 90 percent of their time in the field. How could he keep them at their desktops long enough to use his site?

He didn't have to. In 1999, shortly after the Palm VII came out, the company began using the Palm's Web Clipping Applications technology to make portions of its site accessible by handheld. More recently, Buildscape expanded the system to serve WAP phones, Pocket PCs, two-way pagers, and--the device most builders prefer--Nextel phones with two-way radio and HDML (non-WAP) clients.

Currently about 150 builders use wireless devices to trigger delivery of the materials they specified earlier. Buildscape did much of the initial development in-house. But more recently it partnered with AvantGo, which created a client application that can serve Palm OS, Windows CE, or WAP devices using the firm's wireless application architecture. The AvantGo client has a key advantage: It can serve pages without a connection, so a builder can browse catalogs and create orders offline and then send in the orders when a connection is reestablished.

The system remains in pilot mode because even users--like Leon Sekunda, president and CEO of Seabreeze Construction in Pensacola, Florida--say that it's sometimes faster just to phone the orders in. But Sekunda places orders on his Palm VII anyway, just to save himself some paperwork. "I can order materials from the job site, check their status, [and] check pricing," he says. "To me that's leaps and bounds beyond anything else out there at the moment."

The Enterprise Unstrung

Though projects like Buildscape's are limited in scope today, that won't last long. Most observers expect digital wireless performance to improve dramatically in the next 18 months. By late this year, for example, U.S. carriers should start rolling out wireless services that offer always-on connections at speeds of up to 384 kbps. So businesses like Ingram Micro that operate in environments where timely remote information is critical have little to lose in creating pilot programs with marketing sizzle.

It's not too early to consider the possibilities in your own organization. Identify where mobile employees suffer most from lack of connectivity, observe how handhelds are being used in your business today, and take a close look at the wireless extensions now being added to enterprise applications. As Epiphany's Brad Wilson puts it: "We'll have 12 months or so of everybody saying, 'Will it take off? Will it take off?' And then suddenly everyone will want it yesterday."

Case Study: Flexjet

This private-jet operator used handhelds to automate a cumbersome manual task, saving both time and money. Under the former system (left panel), flight crews would phone in customer feedback after every flight, which staff would then have to key into the SQL database manually. Today, the customer fills out a simple Palm-based survey, and the device transmits it to Flexjet after the plane lands. Savings in administrative costs alone should pay for the system in 18 to 24 months, the firm says.

Case Study: Ingram Micro

Ingram's Partnership America e-commerce system lets important customers order anything from anywhere. The key to the system, diagrammed below, is something wireless applications provider Brience calls its Experience Delivery Server. This server examines incoming requests for data to determine what type of device they originated from--a desktop PC, a handheld, or a WAP-enabled phone--and also the bandwidth of the connection. The Brience software then uses XLS style sheets to format content specifically for that device. Ingram customers typically use a desktop to enter an original lengthy order, but they can place simple repeat orders from any of a range of wireless devices.

The Wired Alternative: ParkStone Medical

Staying in Sync for Better Health Care

Doctors, lawyers, engineers, and other professionals often need mobile access to their data and thus are excellent candidates for handheld applications. But these apps needn't be wireless to be effective.

Consider ParkStone Medical Information Systems. The company--formed by internist Glenn Parker, M.D., and software designer Lewis Stone--makes software that helps doctors manage medications, referrals, diagnostic tests, and documentation for their patients.

Last fall, ParkStone rolled out a new Pocket PC product through IBM's Global Healthcare channel. By the end of the year, roughly 2100 physicians nationwide were using it to check on-the-spot whether a medication they wanted to prescribe was covered by a patient's health insurance. They could also investigate whether the drug might interact with foods or with other drugs.

The heart of the system is an SQL Server database that consolidates constantly updated information from health plans and pharmaceutical companies. On the handheld end is a homegrown mobile application--"as easy to use as a microwave oven," Stone says--that can be synced with the server periodically.

Doctors receive the service at no charge, since insurers and pharmaceutical companies foot the bill. The insurance companies like the program because it streamlines their review process. Drug makers appreciate the fact that it provides physicians--who drive 85 percent of the nation's health care costs--with detailed information on all of the company's latest medications.

Next Steps

Now Stone and Parker plan to go wireless. Aether Systems, a provider of wireless and mobile data products in Owings Mills, Maryland, created a wireless version of the product that is slated to enter beta testing this year. It supports true client-server architecture, meaning that the Pocket PC and the server swap messages only when the handheld client requests it. Otherwise, the Pocket PC works without a wireless connection, storing tens of thousands of patient medication histories locally.

"The great thing about the system," says Aether's corporate vice president of health care solutions Steve Bass (no relation to PC World's columnist), is that by identifying potential drug interactions, "it's out there saving lives every day."

Rules of Thumb to Strengthen Security for Your Firm's Data

Clever hackers may get all the attention, but the most serious security threat at most enterprises is plain old password theft: Somebody gets hold of a valid user name and password, plus the right URL or dial-up number, and uses them to plunder your sensitive data. Or somebody steals a corporate notebook and, armed with the password, simply copies your secrets off the hard drive.

Increasingly, companies are turning to biometrics--technology that allows identification through fingerprint reading, face recognition, voice authentication, and so forth--to guard against such theft. Judging by the flurry of new devices that have appeared, you might think biometrics provides a foolproof defense. Many laptops now come with optional fingerprint readers (see Top of the News for a review of the latest Compaq and Acer models with this capability). And IBM recently bundled Visionics face-recognition software with its UltraPort video camera, an option for the company's A, T, and X series ThinkPads. Mindful of products such as these, International Data Corporation expects annual sales of biometric devices to jump from $300 million this year to $1.8 billion by 2004.

Even if that forecast proves optimistic in the face of today's slowing economy, it's clear that biometrics is on the rise. But that does not mean that biometric devices will solve your security woes, experts warn, and your company should proceed cautiously if it plans to buy. Here are some pointers from consultants, manufacturers, and users to keep in mind:

Choose a mature technology. Currently, that probably means fingerprint readers, because some of the other technologies are less user-friendly or require considerable hardware, says Charles Kolodgy, research manager for IDC. For traveling execs, devices like laptop fingerprint scanners may do the trick. For those in the office, the solution may be fingerprint-protected hard drives from a manufacturer such as Loqware, or the new ID Mouse from Siemens, which has a fingerprint scanner built into its shell. Keep in mind, though, that as many as 3 to 4 percent of people have fingerprints that may be unreadable by the current generation of devices.

Don't kiss passwords good-bye. Every time a biometric device reads your fingerprint, face, signature, or voice, the data it produces is slightly different. If the recognition software can't account for that fluctuation, you'll never get past the gate--which is why you need to tweak the sensitivity until the system recognizes the right person even on bad days while keeping the wrong people out. Given today's technology, that involves striking a delicate and imperfect balance. So think of biometrics as an added layer of security to be combined with standard passwords for especially sensitive data. That way, even if someone manages to steal your password, the thief will still need your fingerprint or face to get in.

Make sure that your system includes an old-fashioned manual override. Any data-protection scheme carries with it the risk of a malfunction that keeps out people who should get in. So you need a backup plan you can resort to if the fingerprint reader refuses to recognize you, or if the executive with sole biometric-protected access gets hit by a bus (or--perhaps more realistically--quits and resurfaces at the competition). The simplest safeguard is to make sure that every biometric-equipped device is accessible by at least two employees. But some experts advise that you implement another, ultrasecret password layer that circumvents biometric security altogether--just in case.

--Caroline Jones

Broadband Flights Face Delays

When you fly, do you suffer from Internet separation anxiety? Boeing has waged a high-stakes bet that you and millions of others do. Since 1996, the company has been developing an in-flight broadband system dubbed Connexion, which can deliver Internet access at T1 speeds via fuselage-mounted antennas, a network of communications satellites, and RJ45 ethernet ports that are built right into the seats.

Everyone seems to like the plan, at least in theory. Boeing's own surveys show that about 70 percent of business users carry laptops. And with an estimated 840,000 laptop-bearing business passengers currently in the sky every day, Boeing predicts a $38 to $40 billion international market for airborne Internet access by 2009; other analysts place demand as high as $70 billion during that same time. "On most planes, people don't use the phones [for Internet access] due to high cost or low bandwidth," says Ken Dulaney, vice president for wireless at the Gartner Group. "The Connexion initiative is pretty exciting."

The barriers to acceptance, however, appear sky-high. Although Boeing began promoting Connexion to the public a year ago and has tested the system on private jets, a Boeing spokesperson says that there is "nothing we can announce" about pending deals with--or even testing by--U.S. carriers. And the cost to passengers may be a sticking point: Boeing says the service will be sold at "cell-phone rates," but that could work out to $75 for a continuous broadband connection on a flight from Seattle to Miami.

Dulaney thinks customer resistance will help keep prices down-to-earth. "I would not be surprised if the cost was only $10 per flight, which would be very reasonable," he says. "And I think they have sufficient bandwidth to do a good job of providing this service." Boeing says its goal is to try to get the system into at least some commercial planes by early 2002. Until then, in-flight movie anyone?

--Stephanie Bruzzese

The Storage Wars Heat Up

E-business is all about the ability to adjust scale quickly. In hardware terms, that may mean adding terabytes of storage to your network fast. Prompted by an influx of new players, competition among network storage vendors has reached a fever pitch, promising lower costs for big storage--but also raising questions about how best to proceed.

A year ago, the dominant names in network storage were clear. Network Appliance held sway in the Network-Attached Storage (NAS) market. NAS systems, exemplified by the company's popular Enterprise Filer series, can be plugged in, almost like an appliance, to a local area network, adding storage capacity without requiring a cumbersome upgrade. Thanks to snazzy cross-platform software, the new box full of hard disks instantly becomes available to the entire network. Meanwhile, EMC dominated the high end of the market, selling towering beasts such as its wardrobe-size, mainframe-compatible Symmetrix Enterprise Storage Systems. EMC concentrated on providing the hardware, software, and services needed to set up multimillion-dollar Storage Area Networks (SANs), which typically rely on the superfast Fibre Channel to connect storage behemoths.

More recently, though, the market has become a free-for-all. EMC recently introduced the Clariion IP4700, which starts at $82,000--roughly half the price of comparable Network Appliance storage servers. Network Appliance countered by announcing support for mainframes and databases made by EMC's biggest high-end rival, IBM. Just a few months earlier, IBM had joined with Compaq to create an alternate SAN standard that encroached on EMC's turf. Not to be left behind, Dell Computer announced that it would sell its PowerVault line of NAS servers at prices well below those of both EMC and Network Appliance. Subsequently, Hewlett-Packard, Sun, and Hitachi have upped the ante, widening and deepening their own competing lines. And more than 20 top storage providers have banded together to compete against the complicated Fibre Channel pathway by offering high-speed SANs over conventional networks.

What's a company to do? "Stay open-ended," advises Dan Tanner, senior analyst for storage and storage management at Aberdeen Group. "NAS and SAN are slowly converging. So consider storage systems with hardware or software commonalities that will permit eventual reuse in a converged infrastructure."

--Stephanie Bruzzese