Enterprise IT To Spend More On Wireless Activity

Enterprise IT managers will increasingly draw upon a new, complex set of wireless solutions, according to a report from Strategy Analytics. The market-research firm expects IT wireless expenditures to reach $115 billion in 2009--eight percent of total IT spending.

The field will be a challenging one, too, said the firm's director of Wireless Enterprise Strategies, Cliff Raskind. "This is a huge headache for IT managers right now," said Raskind in an interview. "IT is feeling the squeeze. On the one hand, it's facing massive complexity and a lot of cost. But on the other hand, individual employees are coming up with their own solutions-like [using] instant messaging" as well as additional individual solutions, such as mobile e-mail.

Raskind said the survey found that large IT organizations will develop their own in-house wireless solutions, while small to medium-size businesses--typically 250 employees ore less--will increasingly rely on wireless and mobile-phone operators for their wireless solutions.

"In the developed markets of North America, Western Europe, and Asia-Pacific," Raskind said, "there exists a vast yet amorphous ecosystem of vendors with a seemingly endless profusion of ways to usher wireless data into the enterprise. All are jockeying for position." Raskind said one unifying event is likely to come from Microsoft, when it releases the next version of its Exchange Server. The next release, and subsequent releases, will help ease the handling of wireless technologies.

The report lists the vertical industries in which it expects the most growth. As expected, the so-called FIRE businesses--finance, insurance, and real estate--will continue their historical position as early adopters of new wireless. "Mobile e-mail, by itself, could be the application that sends wireless IT over the top," said Raskind. "Mobile sales force automation, for instance, is real critical now."The sector deemed to take second place is the government and public safety area, driven by fire and police operations. Other business segments ripe for substantial growth in the use of wireless services include professional services (lawyers, doctors, etc.), healthcare, and pharmaceuticals.

Strategy Analytics predicted that traditional software and services in the IT-wireless category will change dramatically, with a heavy emphasis to be placed on core business-software applications." Observing that there will be a big empty space of functionality between IT wireless services offered by the mobile-service providers for big enterprises and the business offerings for smaller businesses, Raskind said the space represents a business opportunity to companies that can fill it.

"Mobile operators can effectively provide voice services and basic groupware messaging to companies of all sizes and specialties," he said. "But mobile operators can only go so high up the complexity scale towards custom solutions." Large IT specialist firms will focus on the high end, he added.