March 26, 2001

Printer-friendly

Handheld Management Can Be A Handful

continued...page 3 of 3

More on wireless:

sidebar: Answer Policy Questions Now To Avoid Problems Later IT Managers Seek Basic Wireless Commerce (1/22/01) Wireless Gadgets Go The Distance For IT Executives (12/11/00) InternetWeek: Hands-On (3/7/01)

That's not uncommon. Martin Progressive also doesn't provide formal training on many of the wireless devices it supports, but finds that training happens anyway. Engineers who make house calls to cubicles to set up the devices often end up training users. "The tech is really obliged to help as much as possible. It's a cost that we can't easily control," Hann says.

In fact, rarely is training factored into plans to deploy handhelds, and that's a mistake, says Chris deHerrera, CIO of Los Angeles' Pacific Crest Bank. "There are a number of important issues that users need to understand," he says. Battery issues, for instance, can cost users data and productivity. "Battery life is often quoted in terms of hours or days of use, but it's difficult to assess from that what's really going to happen in the field."

Users also should be trained on how to share and synchronize data with the desktop, deHerrera says. Since PDAs often hold data that's tangential or even irrelevant to business responsibilities, IT should ensure that users know how to keep personal data from reaching the server during synchronization with a desktop device. One solution: synchronization software or handheld devices that let users choose what data gets sent to the desktop.

Traditional IT concerns such as network, data, and device security take on a new look when it comes to handhelds.

"Handhelds absolutely are a security hazard, but they're just too new to have policies in place," Martin Progressive's Fischer says. "We have to open up ports on the firewall. We have to give them POP3 and SMTP access."

IT professionals have worked for many years to set up very secure walls around their companies, Gartner's Dulaney says. "With the very act of bringing in a PDA and hooking it into a serial port, that wall has been destroyed," he says. Gartner recommends that IT take deliberate steps to re-establish those traditional security controls. "Standardize on the synchronization software that exchanges data with the desktop," Dulaney advises.

The cost of supporting handheld devices is still hard to gauge, but it's becoming clear that the total cost of ownership is dramatically higher than IT first suspected. Compared with a notebook--which has a hardware cost of $2,000 to $3,000--a $500 PDA at first seems inexpensive. "But with handhelds, you end up spending such a large amount on support that people say, 'Whoa, this isn't going to be as cheap as I thought,'" says Joe Owen, chief technology officer at XcelleNet Inc., which offers mobile-management products and services. Gartner estimates that a typical handheld's total cost of ownership is five times its initial price.

Yes, handhelds are pricey to support. And they aggravate concerns such as data security. But, as with notebooks and desktops before them, the invasion continues--propelled by promises of convenience and productivity gains.

return to page 1, 2

Illustration by James O'Brien
Photo of Hann by Bruce Zake

E-mail To A Friend |  Printer-Friendly |  Send Us Your Feedback

Home | This Week's Issue | Workplace and Careers | Resource Centers | Research

---