The News – 03/01/01

Silly Wabbit

Stupid buzzword alert: Enterprise Application Integration vendor SilverStream announced they’d purchase the wireless software division of European company Waptop Holding A/S. Waptop. Oh, let’s all hope this buzzword doesn’t catch on. I was so glad when the ugly Webtop buzz died down. I have visions of AOL Time Warner getting a hold of this one and peppering us with commercials featuring Elmer Fudd and his wascally waptop.

SilverStream

Wireless Portals Keys to Access

In a free research report, Summit Strategies outlines some of the reasons why wireless portals will be even more important than the regular Web portals:

Portals will be more important for both consumer and business wireless users because it is so difficult to navigate the Web on small wireless devices. Business portals will yield particular value if they can provide fast, easy, personalized access to content and functionality aggregated from multiple sources, through a single user interface, with single sign-on and with simple authentication and security.

Summit asserts that the real power of wireless will be unleashed by what they call wireless workplaces. They predict these virtual workplaces will provide seamless, personalized access to corporate and third-party applications and information, and transparently handle log-on, authentication and security. Summit also predicts a much faster uptake of business use of wireless Web than there was of the regular Web. It’s stunning to realize that the Web has only been seriously used for business for, at most, four or five years. I released by first Web application six years ago last month, and, boy, was it a different world then. Yet businesses are already flocking to wireless platforms to conduct serious business.

It’s important for businesses to realize that a revolution is brewing in wireless. No matter what business you’re in, wireless devices are going to permanently change the way you do business. When you can conduct all your office business anywhere, anytime, the pressures to deliver quicker will become extreme. Just look at how the cell phone and laptop have accelerated business change in the last few years. Now multiply that many times and you’ve got an idea of what’s to come.

So the big question is: Is there an end point? Is there some point at which people stop and say, “that’s enough. We can’t move any faster”? As companies go virtual, and employees become free agents, and alliances become more fleeting, will anything stop the accelerating pace of change?

Personally, I feel there’s got to be some maximum point, some point at which people are totally saturated with information, possibilities, and demands on their time. I’ve no idea what that point might be, but I feel it’s going to be different generationally. Generation E (preteens) will have a much different tolerance than Generations X and Y and us aging Boomers. Nonetheless, everyone needs to have a life, don’t they?

Me? When it gets too intense, I’m going to Texas.

Summit Strategies

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