Mobile technology 'the only hope'

Hardware and software suppliers are pinning their hopes on the channel to help develop the market for wireless networks and handheld devices.

With the PC market flat, mobile computing is one of the few sources of hope for the IT industry. Customers need help in implementing working systems, and the channel has the means of pulling all the necessary parts together and educating customers, say the suppliers.

"The spread of personal digital assistants [PDAs] and mobiles has suffered much in the same way as the early deployment of PCs," said Yad Jaura, European product manager at Xcellenet, a producer of network management software. "IT departments have been loath to support these new devices that they didn't really understand."

Companies are now beginning to try to manage their populations of mobiles, providing backup and data security, but they find it difficult to work with untried technologies.

"A lot of corporates are trying to develop a standard for supporting these devices, as well as mapping out applications they would want to use them for," explained Jaura. But this time, companies want to see a definite return on their technology investments.

"People are more risk-averse; they need proof that the returns are real," he said. "It is now the responsibility of the vendors to provide the proof and to provide return on investment models. Customers and channel partners can then make the right investments."

In an early market, channel partners have a particularly important role to play. "Because the customers don't understand a lot of the options as well as they do with more established technologies, the partners have much more of an educational and consulting role to play," said Jaura.

"There are a lot of new pieces coming together here. It is not just the new devices: there are new applications, new ways of working, new wireless networks, all coming together at the same time. The channel are the people who can put it all together for the customer," he added.

Ideal Hardware's Seamus Twohig agreed that, after a period of hype, some real products are now starting to appear on the market.

"We are making business plans for bluetooth, voice over IP and wireless local area networks for next year," he said. "There is a real opportunity for resellers to make good margins, but they have to make the investment in people and in understanding the technologies."

Mike Morgan, director of the channel business unit for Compaq UK, maintained that the PDA market has now matured. "Customers started off seeing the iPaq as a substitute for a Filofax, but now they see it as part of an end-to-end wireless solution," he explained.

The channel is well placed to develop the market and to pull the various elements of the complete solution together. "It's a fantastic opportunity. Customers are just coming to terms with how to use these new technologies," said Morgan.

He added that a lot of developers have written applications for new handheld devices and are looking for the channel to take these products.