I am currently working on an article around mobile phone usage, for this I have created a quick questionnaire.
Please could you click the link to help me with the future article.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=MhuZJEHJOoCsHafpj2k4kg_3d_3d
Thanks in advance
Steve
Monday, 2 June 2008
Friday, 30 May 2008
DIY versus Managed Mobility
The majority of enterprise mobility solutions deployed in the UK have been completed with the involvement of a specialist third party organisation, coming into existence as managed solutions. Yet, organisations have the option to keep development in-house, and those companies big enough to employ their own experience IT staff may feel that a DIY approach to enterprise mobility offers the best option. While each approach has merits, they share a number of important considerations.
Key Issues:
Assessing skillsets and managing risk.
It’s important to closely study the capabilities of both in-house teams and third party suppliers when moving towards an enterprise mobility project. The underlying objective should be to minimise risk within the development and rollout process so the solution can be completed on time, on budget and with the support of all the field worker users. It’s therefore vital to discover whether the in-house department or supplier has the necessary technical and project management skills and experience to ensure success.
Scaling a solution.
The size and scope of enterprise mobility solutions continues to grow – just a few years ago many implementations were designed to cover relatively small numbers of users, whereas today it’s common for them to reach many hundreds. Organisations need to consider which approach to project development can help them reach the required number of users to roll-out, and also allow them to scale upwards quickly and effectively as their needs develop.
Support & longevity.
While design and implementation presents a specific set of challenges, ongoing user and technical support requires different skills and can require considerable resource. Thought should be given to how these needs can be successfully provided for field workers to cover all working hours and circumstances. Organisations also need to be sure that even if they have the in-house development skills to produce a successful enterprise mobility solution, that they are equally capable of developing and upgrading it over a number of years. Can they keep it current with business need or will they need a third party supplier to help achieve this?
Consultation and communication.
End user organisations clearly have the best understanding of their own businesses and the processes to which a mobility solution is being applied. Care must be taken in involving users at all levels - the views, experience and knowledge of the field workers themselves is critical in designing a solution that will be not only a functional success, but one which will also find support among its actual user base. Third party organisations can offer project management experience to make this process operate efficiently and ensure conclusions are properly reflected in the design of the solution.
Infrastructure & server strategy.
Whichever development route an organisation decides to take, a key consideration is how the infrastructure will be provided and where the solution will be hosted. Different organisations have different requirements – if a company doesn’t have the IT infrastructure internally, then a managed solution offers a good option. Many organisations maintain a preference to host this kind of technology themselves, not least for security reasons of having the equipment under their own roof. But building an infrastructure from scratch takes capital expenditure and some time to implement. A hosted service can be up and running quickly and can also be scaled easily as well as requirements expand.
Key Issues:
Assessing skillsets and managing risk.
It’s important to closely study the capabilities of both in-house teams and third party suppliers when moving towards an enterprise mobility project. The underlying objective should be to minimise risk within the development and rollout process so the solution can be completed on time, on budget and with the support of all the field worker users. It’s therefore vital to discover whether the in-house department or supplier has the necessary technical and project management skills and experience to ensure success.
Scaling a solution.
The size and scope of enterprise mobility solutions continues to grow – just a few years ago many implementations were designed to cover relatively small numbers of users, whereas today it’s common for them to reach many hundreds. Organisations need to consider which approach to project development can help them reach the required number of users to roll-out, and also allow them to scale upwards quickly and effectively as their needs develop.
Support & longevity.
While design and implementation presents a specific set of challenges, ongoing user and technical support requires different skills and can require considerable resource. Thought should be given to how these needs can be successfully provided for field workers to cover all working hours and circumstances. Organisations also need to be sure that even if they have the in-house development skills to produce a successful enterprise mobility solution, that they are equally capable of developing and upgrading it over a number of years. Can they keep it current with business need or will they need a third party supplier to help achieve this?
Consultation and communication.
End user organisations clearly have the best understanding of their own businesses and the processes to which a mobility solution is being applied. Care must be taken in involving users at all levels - the views, experience and knowledge of the field workers themselves is critical in designing a solution that will be not only a functional success, but one which will also find support among its actual user base. Third party organisations can offer project management experience to make this process operate efficiently and ensure conclusions are properly reflected in the design of the solution.
Infrastructure & server strategy.
Whichever development route an organisation decides to take, a key consideration is how the infrastructure will be provided and where the solution will be hosted. Different organisations have different requirements – if a company doesn’t have the IT infrastructure internally, then a managed solution offers a good option. Many organisations maintain a preference to host this kind of technology themselves, not least for security reasons of having the equipment under their own roof. But building an infrastructure from scratch takes capital expenditure and some time to implement. A hosted service can be up and running quickly and can also be scaled easily as well as requirements expand.
Monday, 19 May 2008
Benefits of Software as a Service (SaaS)
Background
Over the last 18 months software as a service SaaS has become more prevalent with major software organisations such as Microsoft offering a rental model for the majority of their software applications which are hosted and managed on third party servers. Software as a Service (SaaS) is the term used for delivering software applications using the Internet or a wide area network as the delivery mechanism. SaaS can be implemented rapidly and removes the need to purchase expensive server infrastructure. The SaaS model is being used to provide a whole host of software applications from email to enterprise mobility solutions.
So what are the benefits ?
Revenue based payments
SaaS is delivered to organisations as a subscription model, usually billed on a per user per month basis for a fixed term of usually 3 years. Billing is on a “pay as you go” basis, that is, businesses only pay for the users who have benefited from the software during each billable month. Naturally this removes large upfront payments and potential annual licence, support and maintenance charges.
Third party hosted
Investing in expensive infrastructure is no longer required since SaaS software applications are now third party hosted. As a result there are no capital costs for hardware, licenses, databases or ongoing overheads of either third party or internal IT support staff or software and hardware maintenance and upgrades. Software applications are accessed via a web browser or a mobile device via a wireless network connection keeping your user IT requirements simple and low cost and easily managed.
Predictable costs
SaaS provides agreed pre-defined fixed charges. This enables you to project and predict your annual costs and helps with annual budget provisioning.
Multi-Tenant Efficiency
Some SaaS solutions use secure multi-tenant architecture (for example Microsoft Exchange email SaaS). This means that the cost of all software, infrastructure and expertise is shared by a large number of customers. This multi-tenant architecture offers reduced implementation times and economies of scale making the overall solution more cost effective
Increased Accessibility
Being Internet based, your applications are accessible not only in the office but from home a hotel room or from any of your businesses international locations if you have them.
Flexibility and Scalability
SaaS, provides businesses with a high level of flexibility. Since, the software solution is delivered via the Internet; SaaS completely eliminates installation and setup at the customer’s end. Users can be up and running very quickly. Also as your business grows all you need to do is request your service provider to add more users. Because hosted solutions are designed to scale, initially you could start with 10 users and after 1 month add say another 3,000 users without any issues, thus providing your business with ultimate flexibility.
Availability and Security
SaaS providers are in the business of providing uninterrupted reliable services. Vendors understand that data must be backed up religiously, and information security is a paramount concern. Skilled resources, network redundancies, stand-by power, up-to-date security and intrusion detection are a necessity in providing an enterprise class service.
Over the last 18 months software as a service SaaS has become more prevalent with major software organisations such as Microsoft offering a rental model for the majority of their software applications which are hosted and managed on third party servers. Software as a Service (SaaS) is the term used for delivering software applications using the Internet or a wide area network as the delivery mechanism. SaaS can be implemented rapidly and removes the need to purchase expensive server infrastructure. The SaaS model is being used to provide a whole host of software applications from email to enterprise mobility solutions.
So what are the benefits ?
Revenue based payments
SaaS is delivered to organisations as a subscription model, usually billed on a per user per month basis for a fixed term of usually 3 years. Billing is on a “pay as you go” basis, that is, businesses only pay for the users who have benefited from the software during each billable month. Naturally this removes large upfront payments and potential annual licence, support and maintenance charges.
Third party hosted
Investing in expensive infrastructure is no longer required since SaaS software applications are now third party hosted. As a result there are no capital costs for hardware, licenses, databases or ongoing overheads of either third party or internal IT support staff or software and hardware maintenance and upgrades. Software applications are accessed via a web browser or a mobile device via a wireless network connection keeping your user IT requirements simple and low cost and easily managed.
Predictable costs
SaaS provides agreed pre-defined fixed charges. This enables you to project and predict your annual costs and helps with annual budget provisioning.
Multi-Tenant Efficiency
Some SaaS solutions use secure multi-tenant architecture (for example Microsoft Exchange email SaaS). This means that the cost of all software, infrastructure and expertise is shared by a large number of customers. This multi-tenant architecture offers reduced implementation times and economies of scale making the overall solution more cost effective
Increased Accessibility
Being Internet based, your applications are accessible not only in the office but from home a hotel room or from any of your businesses international locations if you have them.
Flexibility and Scalability
SaaS, provides businesses with a high level of flexibility. Since, the software solution is delivered via the Internet; SaaS completely eliminates installation and setup at the customer’s end. Users can be up and running very quickly. Also as your business grows all you need to do is request your service provider to add more users. Because hosted solutions are designed to scale, initially you could start with 10 users and after 1 month add say another 3,000 users without any issues, thus providing your business with ultimate flexibility.
Availability and Security
SaaS providers are in the business of providing uninterrupted reliable services. Vendors understand that data must be backed up religiously, and information security is a paramount concern. Skilled resources, network redundancies, stand-by power, up-to-date security and intrusion detection are a necessity in providing an enterprise class service.
Friday, 16 May 2008
Tomorrow's Wireless World
I have just been made aware of a new piece of research undertaken by Ofcom entitled Tomorrow's Wireless world.
Background to the report
New technology in cars to help avoid collisions; wireless devices to remind patients to take medication; wireless food content scanners to change the way we shop …these are just some of the new technologies that are highlighted in Ofcom’s 2008 technology research report published today.
Tomorrow’s Wireless World scans the horizon ten to twenty years in the future to discover potentially significant advances and new, innovative technologies which are being developed that could improve healthcare and transport provision.
Wireless devices are now an essential part of our everyday lives. As well as transport and healthcare, wireless communications are essential to defence, education, entertainment, culture and commerce. Wireless communications are so integral to our lives that today there are more mobile subscriptions, at 70 million, than the 60 million UK population.
Ofcom’s role is to ensure the most efficient use of the UK’s radio frequencies – or spectrum – that these services use. Spectrum is a finite resource; Ofcom’s technology research helps it to better understand how this precious resource might be used in the future and allows it to plan how we manage the spectrum to meet these demands
To get your free copy of the report click on the link below.
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/research/technology/overview/randd0708/
Background to the report
New technology in cars to help avoid collisions; wireless devices to remind patients to take medication; wireless food content scanners to change the way we shop …these are just some of the new technologies that are highlighted in Ofcom’s 2008 technology research report published today.
Tomorrow’s Wireless World scans the horizon ten to twenty years in the future to discover potentially significant advances and new, innovative technologies which are being developed that could improve healthcare and transport provision.
Wireless devices are now an essential part of our everyday lives. As well as transport and healthcare, wireless communications are essential to defence, education, entertainment, culture and commerce. Wireless communications are so integral to our lives that today there are more mobile subscriptions, at 70 million, than the 60 million UK population.
Ofcom’s role is to ensure the most efficient use of the UK’s radio frequencies – or spectrum – that these services use. Spectrum is a finite resource; Ofcom’s technology research helps it to better understand how this precious resource might be used in the future and allows it to plan how we manage the spectrum to meet these demands
To get your free copy of the report click on the link below.
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/research/technology/overview/randd0708/
Sunday, 13 April 2008
Mobility and the environment – bridging the gap in local government
Environmental performance across government is firmly on the political, social and media agenda. Local authorities in particular are faced with both the opportunity and the pressure to set an example and act in the pursuit both of long term sustainability, while also being mindful of current issues such as strongly rising fuel costs.
These are a unique set of circumstances, dictating radical change across a very wide range of local authority activities, processes and policies. Yet in some key areas the pace of change has been slow. With reductions in carbon output at the heart of the whole debate, it has surprisingly been the private sector which has moved more quickly in the use of technology to reduce amount of carbon produced by their workers operating on the move.
In local government in general, there are a huge range of job functions and activities to which mobile and flexible working technology could be applied to significantly reduce environmental impact. These range from social services activities, environmental services and building control to home care, parking services and housing – the list is almost endless. What they have in common is the potential to optimise how job schedules are organised and as a result by how much the overall amount of travel undertaken to carry out the jobs can be reduced.
These field workers perform vital roles across the country for local authorities – many of them travel a great deal to perform their duties. The adoption of mobility technology can radically improve efficiency of remote workers out in the field, and as a result eliminate unnecessary journeys, save very large sums in fuel and reduce the amount of paper used in day-to-day activities by a huge amount.
One recent private sector example offers an exact illustration of what can be achieved. By deploying a field mobility solution with fully integrated satellite navigation, one organisation was able to make more efficient use of their workforce and considerably reduce the average miles covered per job, resulting in a staggering saving of 3.6 million miles per annum. This equates to a carbon reduction of 1,159 metric tonnes of carbon per annum, or the equivalent of 26,953 light bulbs being left on for a year.The company was also able to remove 1.5 million pieces of paper from their business annually, equating to a saving of 17.5 trees’ (60 feet high) every year. Previously, the paper was shredded then incinerated resulted in the production of 7.2 metric tonnes of carbon, or the equivalent of 171 light bulbs being left on for a year.
While the use of mobile phones is practically ubiquitous among field workers, effective and efficient use of broader mobile technology is another matter altogether. Yet the environmental and business impact using mobile technology to make improvements can be considerable, and are by no means mutually exclusive objectives.
Using a private sector example illustrates where we are, in general, with the adoption of mobility solutions across local government. For local authorities, the adoption of mobility technology to capitalise on these opportunities – and it’s not just environmental benefits, but performance and service improvements - has been less rapid.
Recent research carried out by The Mobile Data Association into this precise area found that although many authorities were seeking to pursue additional mobile and flexible working options, there remained some general barriers to success. In particular, getting projects from the pilot phase into full use has provided ongoing difficulties across the UK and as a result there are still relatively few really strong examples of mobility technology in use within local government to the benefit of the environment.
On the other side of the coin, there are just a few very good examples of local government leading the way. The London Borough of Lewisham has been a strong advocate of using mobility technology for environmental and service benefits for a considerable time. By implementing a mobility solution for its building and maintenance craft workers and replacing the previous job allocation and paper-based processes the Council has saved an estimated £6,000 per year in reduced paperwork, and over £5,500 in fuel costs.
In simple terms, instead of going into work every day to collect paper-base job schedules which have to be returned later for processing, the craft workers receive optimised job schedules directly to their handheld PDA and visit each site in the most efficient order. The mobility solution provides the intelligent communication to and from each worker, saving time, unnecessary travel and masses of paper. Their work hasn’t gone unnoticed, when the project became an award-winning example of best practise at the end of 2007 with a Microsoft People Moving Business Award,
In the great scheme of things, this is one of not very many case studies across local government. While research can provide the insight into the reasons why, ultimately there needs to be an acceleration of effort from within local government to adopt what is now proven and affordable technology in order to directly address these headline issues of long term sustainability and immediate fiscal benefit.
These are a unique set of circumstances, dictating radical change across a very wide range of local authority activities, processes and policies. Yet in some key areas the pace of change has been slow. With reductions in carbon output at the heart of the whole debate, it has surprisingly been the private sector which has moved more quickly in the use of technology to reduce amount of carbon produced by their workers operating on the move.
In local government in general, there are a huge range of job functions and activities to which mobile and flexible working technology could be applied to significantly reduce environmental impact. These range from social services activities, environmental services and building control to home care, parking services and housing – the list is almost endless. What they have in common is the potential to optimise how job schedules are organised and as a result by how much the overall amount of travel undertaken to carry out the jobs can be reduced.
These field workers perform vital roles across the country for local authorities – many of them travel a great deal to perform their duties. The adoption of mobility technology can radically improve efficiency of remote workers out in the field, and as a result eliminate unnecessary journeys, save very large sums in fuel and reduce the amount of paper used in day-to-day activities by a huge amount.
One recent private sector example offers an exact illustration of what can be achieved. By deploying a field mobility solution with fully integrated satellite navigation, one organisation was able to make more efficient use of their workforce and considerably reduce the average miles covered per job, resulting in a staggering saving of 3.6 million miles per annum. This equates to a carbon reduction of 1,159 metric tonnes of carbon per annum, or the equivalent of 26,953 light bulbs being left on for a year.The company was also able to remove 1.5 million pieces of paper from their business annually, equating to a saving of 17.5 trees’ (60 feet high) every year. Previously, the paper was shredded then incinerated resulted in the production of 7.2 metric tonnes of carbon, or the equivalent of 171 light bulbs being left on for a year.
While the use of mobile phones is practically ubiquitous among field workers, effective and efficient use of broader mobile technology is another matter altogether. Yet the environmental and business impact using mobile technology to make improvements can be considerable, and are by no means mutually exclusive objectives.
Using a private sector example illustrates where we are, in general, with the adoption of mobility solutions across local government. For local authorities, the adoption of mobility technology to capitalise on these opportunities – and it’s not just environmental benefits, but performance and service improvements - has been less rapid.
Recent research carried out by The Mobile Data Association into this precise area found that although many authorities were seeking to pursue additional mobile and flexible working options, there remained some general barriers to success. In particular, getting projects from the pilot phase into full use has provided ongoing difficulties across the UK and as a result there are still relatively few really strong examples of mobility technology in use within local government to the benefit of the environment.
On the other side of the coin, there are just a few very good examples of local government leading the way. The London Borough of Lewisham has been a strong advocate of using mobility technology for environmental and service benefits for a considerable time. By implementing a mobility solution for its building and maintenance craft workers and replacing the previous job allocation and paper-based processes the Council has saved an estimated £6,000 per year in reduced paperwork, and over £5,500 in fuel costs.
In simple terms, instead of going into work every day to collect paper-base job schedules which have to be returned later for processing, the craft workers receive optimised job schedules directly to their handheld PDA and visit each site in the most efficient order. The mobility solution provides the intelligent communication to and from each worker, saving time, unnecessary travel and masses of paper. Their work hasn’t gone unnoticed, when the project became an award-winning example of best practise at the end of 2007 with a Microsoft People Moving Business Award,
In the great scheme of things, this is one of not very many case studies across local government. While research can provide the insight into the reasons why, ultimately there needs to be an acceleration of effort from within local government to adopt what is now proven and affordable technology in order to directly address these headline issues of long term sustainability and immediate fiscal benefit.
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