Welcome to MobileWorkz.com - Information on T Mobile Phones

The mobility mantra is on the mind of many senior executives and suppliers. Practically every ICT-focused press and customer event I've been to so far this year has included presentations on mobility or mobile working. But what's also evident is the quite different, but equally passionate views that users have about their preferred mobile device.

Sony Ericsson's P800 smart phone has been a popular choice, but not all agree on its usability. Some prefer to stick with a PDA and/or laptop and a small mobile phone. Then there are Blackberry or XDA enthusiasts, and also the more niche group who swear by a Nokia Communicator. While it is only anecdotal evidence, it does raise questions about whether large deployments of one type of device within an organisation will really get the predicted productivity results, when not all users will be equally enamoured with a device.

Research from Canalys shows that more than 2.2 million voice-centric devices were shipped in the last quarter of 2004 in EMEA, compared with 1.2 million data centric devices. But it is a growing market, so while at first glance it looks like smart phones are taking over the mobile device market, sales of data-centric handheld devices such as PDAs have jumped by 56% since the last quarter of 2002. Gartner is seeing a fall-off in the number of PDAs now sold in America, but says that Europe should continue to see growth for the near future.

Chris Jones, senior analyst and director at Canalys, says of handhelds: "It will become more and more difficult to sell such devices purely on the basis of personal information management. Low end handhelds are competing with smart phones offering a similar level of functionality; high end models must offer other benefits to justify their higher price points."

Gartner agrees that at the low-end, smart phones are becoming the preferred form factor, but it will take some time before smart phones begin to erode the appeal of high-end, Microsoft-based PDAs among corporate users.

"Smart phones will generally have a negative impact on the low end of the PDA market, as many individual users will find the personal information management (PIM) and email capabilities of smart phones acceptable," says Todd Kort, principal analyst in Gartner's Computing Platforms Worldwide group. "These users will tend to become less interested in low-end PDAs that have provided these capabilities."

He continues: "This will primarily impact the Palm OS because a relatively high percentage of Palm OS users rely on these devices solely for their PIM capabilities. Smart phones will become more important in the enterprise market in 2005, at which point we expect to see increasing erosion of the Microsoft side of the market."

For the moment, enterprises are tending to favour Microsoft-based data-centric devices for large-scale mobile data deployments, and Canalys points to HP's PDAs as being a particularly popular choice, especially with companies expanding on previous pilot projects.

www.canalys.com www.gartner.com

voice of reason

A survey of 100 UK IT Directors--from Intuwave--has tracked their changing attitudes to smart phones between December 2002 and January 2004. The company says that the results show a more educated, yet reluctant market, as yet unconvinced by the lack of credible applications.

There was a 511% increase in the number of respondents able to demonstrate a broad understanding of device functionality, but the number who would consider deploying a smart phone as a business tool has fallen by 28%, And the number who are openly opposed to the idea is also on the up, with a 53% increase amongst those who would not consider deploying smart phones.

But what has happened to change people's minds in the past year?

The 2002 survey pointed to device cost as a significant barrier to deployment, but this no longer seems to be the problem. The biggest shift in view relates to security--with an 882% increase in respondents who were worried about the loss or theft of such devices. Intuwave says that at least this proves mat people understand the data capabilities of these devices.

Andrew Wyatt, vice president of strategic marketing at Intuwave, says what he thinks the market needs: "What is clear from this research is that business users still don't have confidence in the smart phone as an adequate business tool. What the market needs now Is a demonstration of the true business value of a smart phone, which can be achieved through the roll-out of useful and reliable business applications."

"As we move away from the early adopter market, the issue of being able to support smart phones and their applications becomes increasingly important, and business users will expect the same level of support that they receive for their PC or laptop."