August 28, 2000

Printer ready

Sprint Packages Wireless Services For Mobile Workers

Carrier partners with applications vendors to offer cell phone and notebook access to apps

By Bob Wallace

More on wireless applications:

Reach Legacy Databases By Phone (8/14/00) Wireless Overcomes Security Woes (8/7/00) VARBusiness The Joy of Wireless (8/21/00)

Send Us Your Feedback

ong focused on the consumer market, Sprint PCS is expanding its menu of services to give mobile workers with wireless cell phone and notebook access to business applications such as E-mail, sales-force automation tools, and corporate directories. It's also promising to boost wireless access speeds to 56 Kbps.

Sprint PCS last week launched its Wireless Web for Business program. Sprint will provide wireless links and phones, while partners such as Lotus, PeopleSoft, Sabre, Siebel Systems, and Wireless Knowledge will provide systems and software for wireless access to key business programs.

Sprint's package is part of an emerging trend in which wireless service providers are developing more offerings that let mobile workers access business data and applications. Sprint's goal is to provide a higher level of customer service and enhance the speed of business. AT&T recently launched a service that offers wireless access to Microsoft Exchange.

Joe Bove, technology manager at McDermott International Inc., a global energy-services company in New Orleans, says Sprint's services will help his company "rapidly respond to the fast-changing needs of our customers." He says they "represent a much more attractive alternative than us buying all the pieces individually and pulling things together ourselves. The top application our field people and traveling execs want to access wirelessly is E-mail."

The expanded offerings will be rolled out starting next month. Sprint will charge $40 a month for unlimited wireless Web access for customers who purchase a voice package for $49.99 or more per month. Sprint also will offer a compression server designed to boost the data speeds on its PCS network from 14.4 Kbps to 56 Kbps.

The server is priced at $25,000; customers need software for the server and each client. In addition, application vendors must add a module to each seat or site to make existing applications available to wireless users. High-speed wireless notebook modems are priced at $400. Other kits will be available to link personal digital assistants, Pocket PCs, and other mobile devices to a PCS phone that serves as a modem.

What's most striking about the program is the number and choice of applications vendors involved. "They've taken the fledgling market of wirelessly accessible business applications to the next level by joining with a broad number of vendors covering the most useful packages," says Ira Brodsky, president of Datacomm Research.

Communications Supply Corp. says such wireless services will help its mobile workers manage customers and order entry. "With this service, our field salespeople could check the status of a customer order without calling into our inside agents," says Mason Roteli, CIO at the Carol Stream, Ill., equipment distributor. "And when the customer gives us an order, we could check availability first and then quickly submit orders via a cell phone, rather than sending them in batch-wise at the end of the day."

Mark Lowenstein, executive VP of the wireless practice at the Yankee Group, applauded Sprint's inclusion of notebooks as wireless data-access devices. "Limited bandwidth is the main barrier to wider use of laptops for wireless data access, so the boost toward 56 Kbps brings them back into the wireless equation," he says. "After cell phones, laptops have the greater penetration in the enterprise."

One question about the Sprint program is who will serve as systems integrator, since the offering includes wares from several companies. A spokesman says Sprint personnel will take the lead in installing and implementing wireless access and bring in additional expertise as needed. But at least one user says that may not be good enough.

"We're going to want a single point of contact," says Maralyn Rosenblatt, VP of Internet technology at Countrywide Home Loans in Calabasas, Calif. It "should be a Sprint account manager that would serve as the user's first point of contact for issues and questions, and should be responsible for working with partners to resolve service problems."

Photo by Mary Lou Uttermohlen

Back to This Week's Issue
Send Us Your Feedback
Top of the Page