siness for ambitious resellers. But while wireless is shedding its bleeding-edge past, the market still isn't for cowards.
A Familiar Look
What's different this time around? For one thing, the hardware. Instead of souped-up pen-based computers, the hot new SFA device is a familiar-looking gadget: a portable telephone. Salespeople who want to spend their energy hunting down new orders rather than learning to use new technology are less likely to be scared away by devices that are already part of their road-warrior arsenal, says John Pennington, director of technical resources for PenTech (Atlanta, GA), a systems integrator that sp
ecializes in SFA projects.
Today's newest wireless phones, including the Nokia 9000i and AT&T's PocketNet (manufactured by Mitsubishi and Samsung), use their screens, keypads, and built-in data/fax modems for two-way data communications in addition to voice calls. The PocketNet, at just 9.6 ounces, maintains the traditional cell-phone form factor, with a tiny 1- by 2-inch screen and a keypad that accommodates only one-finger pecking. The Nokia 9000i, at a heftier 13.9 ounces, cracks open like a jewelry box to reveal a 4-3/4- by 1-1/2-inch screen and a 65-character QWERTY keypad that doesn't allow for touch-typing but is easier to use than the PocketNet for knocking out short e-mail messages. Even the PalmPilot, 3Com's big fish in the small PDA pond, has been beefed up to take on the wireless-phone players, thanks to a new wireless IP modem that cradles the PalmPilot and gives it two-way data smarts.
The rest of the mobile SFA story lies in new software designed to turn wireless phones into "sm
art phones," with the help of the Web. Geoworks and its venerable Geoworks OS, which is for resource-crammed portable devices (including the Nokia 9000i), have recently been joined by Unwired Planet, whose new markup language and mini-browser are catching resellers' attention. Add SFA publishers such as Aurum, InfoMan, and Vantive, and this team-building is happening faster than in the baseball expansion draft.
For some field sales applications, these smart phones are replacing a notebook connected to a cell phone equipped with a data modem, a cumbersome mix. The attraction of smart phones is familiarity. "You're not asking salespeople to carry around another device," explains
Gary McGuire
, practice director for wireless technology for Realogic, a Cleveland systems integrator. "You can't read
War and Peace
on a 1- by 2-inch screen, but you can use [a smart phone] to extract key information, such as when an order will ship."
McGuire says his company has developed a wi
reless methodology that it calls Air Strategy. "When we integrate wireless as a strategic tool for clients, we have to help them understand that wireless isn't just a matter of cutting the cord," he explains. If you try to use a smart phone as a notebook replacement for Web browsing, for example, you'll be disappointed with the performance and the monthly communications bill, he adds.
But not all resellers are ready to jump into the SFA wireless stream. "We're still a few years away from wireless's becoming an important technology," says Pennington. "Our customers aren't telling us they want it." Even wireless evangelists wince at the pain of past "almost-there" wireless technologies. "The pioneers are the ones with the arrows in their backs, and I'm starting to run out of room on mine," McGuire admits.
Wireless Web
The latest candidate for taking wireless from the frontier to civilization is Unwired Planet's three-pronged UpLink technology package. Resellers say its unique markup languag
e, mini-browser, and gateway help alleviate one of the biggest development problems in the wireless sector: The need to develop applications over and over again for a variety of hardware devices. UpLink takes a Web-like, agnostic approach to platforms: Develop once, run on any system.
The heart of the Unwired Planet approach is to connect smart phones and similar devices to Web servers. For developers, the company created and is pushing as a de facto standard the Handheld Device Markup Language (HDML), a knockoff of HTML designed to work within the confines of tiny end-user displays and wireless links to Web servers.
HDML's programming metaphor is a deck of cards, with each card representing a task for the
smart phone
to carry out. For example, there are cards for displaying data, for issuing a prompt to capture text entered by the user, and for displaying menu selections. All the cards in a deck constitute a single wireless application, and decks can exchange data and proces
ses with other decks.
HDML's cards aren't intended for Web browsing. Instead, the technology emphasizes extracting nuggets of information by presenting end users with succeeding layers of choices that lead them to a desired phone number, inventory item, or product price. Before the information travels from a corporate database to the salesperson in the field, the Handheld Device Transport Protocol (HDTP) automatically encrypts the data using the HTTPS and SSL protocols.
SFA applications display the information using Unwired Planet's UP.Browser, a small-footprint browser and messaging engine that can flash a message that an important e-mail is waiting for you or that you should call the office. Unwired Planet stripped down the browser by shifting some traditional browser data to an associated gateway server, called UP.Link Gateway. For example, a bookmark -- say, a price list maintained at headquarters by sales and marketing -- resides on the server rather than on the smart phone to keep the resour
ce requirements to a minimum. In addition to conserving resources, the browser uses easy arrow and hot-key commands designed to help end users navigate the software within a tiny display window.
The UP.Link Gateway is the conduit that connects smart phones running the UP.Browser to commercial wireless networks and on to Internet and intranet servers. When a field salesperson enters a command into the UP.Browser, the native HDTP request travels to a gateway, which translates the command into standard HTTP or HTTPS code, which is recognizable to Web servers. The native HDTP request can travel on SMS, CDPD/AMPS, CDMA, GSM, PCS, and TDMA networks, according to Unwired Planet. (For an explanation of these acronyms, see "Air War," August 1997 BYTE.) A relational database within the gateway maintains configuration, registration, and logging information, the company adds.
"The Unwired Planet technology is nice to work with because it's basic Web technology," says Gary Fletcher, president of Sakura Design
(Grass Valley, CA), a systems integrator. "The only proprietary component is HDML, but that's straightforward to use. If you have HTML experience, the learning curve for HDML is between a couple of days and a week to get a basic application up and running."
He says that the UP.Link Gateway installation is similarly easy if your application only requires connecting a mobile worker to the Web. "If you want to push information to the field, you need to use a secondary interface in Gateway," he explains. "It's still Web technology, but you move up a level in complexity."
Another new tool for SFA resellers wanting to go wireless is Geoworks' recent introduction, Wireless Web Access, which tries to make Web exploration more efficient by filtering out graphics and extraneous items on Web pages before end users receive them on their smart phones. The filters, which reside on a proxy server, can convert JPEG to GIF, reformat tables into paragraphs, and remove graphical embellishments.
The result, acc
ording to the company, is a time-saving compression of Web pages from an average of 72,000 bytes to approximately 30,000 bytes for a home page with a moderate amount of graphics. The time to download each page to a small-footprint phone like the Nokia 9000i is approximately 31 seconds with compression, versus 1 minute, 16 seconds without, the company says.
PalmPilot's Encore
One hardware platform that's being married to the Unwired Planet constellation is the PalmPilot. The PalmPilot's success so far has been primarily as a handy electronic organizer. But its parent, 3Com, hopes to turn it into a more ambitious two-way data device -- with the help of Novatel Wireless, which makes a wireless IP modem, called Minstrel, that supports Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD) networks. The result is that salespeople can not only carry around their contact lists but also log in to Web servers to download additional sales information.
The PalmPilot/Novatel duo can support AT&T's PocketNet, a CDPD
network service that AT&T has sold to corporations since 1996 and recently made available to consumers and small businesses. The PocketNet service includes wireless e-mail and Internet access.
Resellers and integrators can develop or customize SFA applications with the Palm Operating System, which natively supports TCP/IP and comes with an SDK that includes Metrowerks' CodeWarrior for the PalmPilot (in Windows 95 and NT and Macintosh versions).
Wireless SFA Applications
SFA is a hot button for wireless data applications because of two characteristics: a need for up-to-the-minute data, and a user base that shuns difficult-to-learn hardware and software, says consultant Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies and a follower of SFA trends. As a result, traditional SFA vendors are announcing wireless strategies using smart phones, which opens the door for further customization by resellers.
For instance, Syclo used Unwired Planet's HDML to create a wireless version of its Inf
o Manager contact manager. Field salespeople use the application to connect CDPD-based smart phones to Notes databases. Aurum Software announced that it's developing a new SFA application that runs under Geoworks and is designed to work with the Nokia 9000i. And Wright Strategies, the four-year-old creator of FormLogic, will develop SFA software for Contact, a hand-held personal computer (HPC) with a built-in CDPD wireless and land-line modem. The software supports Windows CE 2.0 and was expected to ship late last year.
In addition,
Vantive
, maker of the SFA application Vantive Enterprise, has announced MiniVan, a mobile client that gives road warriors access to customer databases. MiniVan is designed to run within the PalmPilot/UP.Browser/Minstrel combination. Vantive Sales is an SFA application that will use the PalmPilot, Microsoft Outlook, and MiniVan.
In most cases, wireless reseller pioneers have platforms dictated to them. For example, "Geoworks is the OS for the Nokia
9000i," says McGuire. Thus, resellers and systems integrators have to keep development staffs trained and ready for many environments. However, this challenge can be a business benefit. The wide knowledge base can make a reseller more competitive and justify charging higher rates. "We view it as an investment in intellectual property," McGuire adds.
Still Evolving
Today, having real-time access to corporate data is tough enough to accomplish over wireless networks. The day when field salespeople can achieve real-time order processing -- filling in order forms in a customer's office and whisking away a confirmed order to headquarters with a smart phone -- may still be years away. "There's no question that salespeople will want wireless communications, but its success depends on how the networks evolve," Bajarin says.
Where to Find
Geoworks
Alameda, CA
Phone: 510-814-1660
Internet: http://www.geoworks.com
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