Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Handset-to-handset combat - Phones aim for corporate clients by competing with PDA devices

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 19:51:11 -0400

Handset-to-handset combat - Phones aim for corporate clients by
competing with PDA devices

By Barbara Rose
Tribune staff reporter
Published April 2, 2004

Melissa Rasmussen no longer lugs a laptop when she calls on the eye
doctors who prescribe her company's custom contact lenses.

The CooperVision Inc. sales manager carries a handheld device that lets
her tap into her company's databases to check customer accounts and
place orders.

"All the information you would need is on your Palm," she said. "You're
never unprepared."

Companies like CooperVision represent a new frontier for the wireless
industry, including cell phone-makers such as Motorola Inc., who are
trying to shape a multibillion-dollar market.

The Schaumburg company is producing a growing line of computer-like
phones to compete with Nokia Corp.'s Communicator and devices by PalmOne
Inc., Research In Motion Ltd., which makes the Blackberry, and others.

With cell phones becoming more like computers--and handhelds becoming
more like cell phones--there's a welter of handsets that provide
real-time access to e-mail and corporate databases, and run applications
and spreadsheets.

Carriers are upgrading their networks to transmit ever-fatter files at
higher speeds.  Add to that a recovering economy--corporate IT budgets
are growing again--and the time is ripe to pursue the wireless
industry's long-held vision of a mobile workforce.

"A lot of carriers have been talking about wireless IT departments for a
long time," said Tim Rowden, a senior manager in the wireless division
of Samsung Telecommunications America. "We're right on the edge of
having it happen."

Still, the barriers are considerable. Information technology managers
aren't accustomed to working with wireless carriers, and there are
concerns about network security and reliability. Enterprise sales
require partnerships among hardware makers, carriers and system
integrators.

Technology is only part of the equation. Industry players also need to
make a compelling business case.
"The promise is huge, but it's been a very difficult case to make," said
Alex Slawsby, senior analyst for IDC, an IT advisory firm. "Not only
have examples been limited, but they haven't been replicable. Return on
investment is very hard to prove."
Even CooperVision is hard-pressed to put a number on its return. The
company started working with Palm OS technology when it developed
software four years ago to help eye doctors fit its custom lenses. It
loads the software on Palms and gives them to doctors.

Since then, it has distributed 1,000 devices including Rasmussen's Palm
Tungsten W.
"Our IT department loves it," said Mark Bertolin, director of Internet
marketing.
"Everybody has the same platform, the same software."

CooperVision considers its investment in clinical software central to
the company's growth. On the savings side, there's been a "significant"
reduction in the cost of serving the company's 30,000 customers,
Bertolin said.
Most wireless devices are targeted to consumers, unlike personal
computers, which developed first as business tools before moving into
homes.

Makers of handheld computers have sold an estimated 35 million devices
since the early 1990s, according to Slawsby. "Maybe 1 million have been
deployed around the world for enterprise use."

By comparison, cell phone-makers have put 1.3 billion handsets into
consumers' pockets, but they, too, have barely cracked the enterprise
market.

Yankee Group senior analyst Eugene Signorini estimates that fewer than
20 percent of wireless phone users get the cost of their phones
reimbursed by employers.

Despite the challenges, cell phone-makers are devoting more resources to
the market while teaming up with service providers. Nokia has partnered
with IBM Corp., and Motorola with Cap Gemini Ernst & Young and EDS.
"Where you start to see big names pairing off," Signorini said, "that's
where you're going to see some movement."
When Nokia reorganized last fall, it dedicated one of its four divisions
to enterprise customers and recruited Hewlett-Packard Corp. executive
Mary McDowell to head it.

"This is about taking a company that was very much focused on phones and
networks and saying, `How do we grow?'" said Joe Gottlieb, director of
business development and strategy for Nokia's enterprise mobility
systems business.

Nokia recently bought Eizel Technologies Inc., which makes corporate
server software that helps view e-mail attachments and Intranet sites on
mobile devices.

One of Nokia's strengths is its position as a leader in corporate
firewalls that screen out viruses and spam--which gives it credibility
with big corporations.

Motorola has partnered with Microsoft Corp., a dominant force in the
enterprise market despite its newcomer status in mobile software.
Motorola's smart phones and coming Pocket PCs are powered by Windows
Mobile software.
"Windows Mobile is the bet we're making will win out over the other
technologies," said Motorola's Michael Tatelman, general manager of a
team that oversees handsets for professionals.

Motorola also hopes to leverage its deep ties with carmakers--it's a
leading supplier of auto electronics--and companies such as FedEx Corp.

One of the world's biggest wireless implementations was FedEx's $150
million investment two years ago in wireless handhelds developed by
Motorola to automate FedEx's dispatch, pickup and delivery operations.

There's also Motorola's status as the developer and supplier of Nextel
Communications' iDEN network equipment and handsets, widely used by
mobile workers from tradespeople to real estate agents.

Samsung Electronics comes from a consumer heritage, yet the South Korean
company's North American wireless operation is zeroing in on enterprise
sales. The firm hired an enterprise team last year.

To create awareness, Samsung has done pilot implementations for a
Houston medical center, Schindler Elevator Corp. and GE Security.

"We're training teams to talk about solutions rather than just a phone,"
Rowden said.
"The whole industry is going through a learning curve."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0404020185apr02,1,7870904.story?coll=chi-business-hed

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