Convergence effort in mobile arena bona fide for 2004

Spending money on technology for the mere sake of it is rapidly fading from the CTO's agenda. The most notable corrosion of this sentiment has, however, taken place over the past 12 months, with IT departments putting paid to the new requirement of their technology investment: to reduce operational cost and improve efficiencies.

The business case is quite simple, says Rick Rogers, country manager of Nortel Networks: lower TCO, and link TCO to mobility and productivity.

One reality that has had this corporate mind-shift as its key driver is convergence, promising instant cash savings by virtue of consolidating data, voice, video and fax on one network - your own - and effectively taking spend out of the public operator`s pocket. An area that has, however, lacked focus in the convergence space is mobile communication, evidenced by the substantial amount of money still being spent here.

Rogers says that while corporations have become dependent on mobility to run their businesses, the potential cost savings of integrating the mobile component into a converged infrastructure have not yet been realised. "Organisations all have mobile instruments, but the efficiency and ease with which these can to be integrated at the corporate head office is still a major business requirement," he adds.

While the WiFi space is still typically seen as a low-cost access medium where the road warrior at Starbucks gains access to the corporate intranet and resources through an IP VPN client, the arrival of applications that will allow for voice and data to be transported through WiFi to public mobile operators is immanent. "Common, standards-based commodity instruments will further ensure the necessary fusion of these private hotspots and the public operators.

"The foreseeable future may well allow for extending wireless capabilities, once integrated, from the desktop into these applications," Rogers adds.

A brief overview of Nortel Networks` R&D focus for 2004 shows that for the South African market, convergence is becoming embedded, allowing applications and Web content to be offloaded to the infrastructure.

"Our R&D spend focuses on making networks more flexible and integral to the business to ensure that while cost savings are realised, business continuity remains a key driver. Security is a crucial component, and one that needs to be fully integrated into the available framework. The global propagation of viruses is, in its own right, costing corporations billions to contain the loss of productivity."

Voice, still seen as the bedrock of convergence, with the underlying expectation that when combined with data on one infrastructure causes degradation in any given area, has highlighted another key area for Nortel`s R&D spend. "Our investment specifically looks at the full integration of voice and data, and combining this with multimedia communications," Rogers says.

"We`re also bringing a stronger R&D focus to carrier hosting services, with solutions geared towards both voice and data. While larger corporations can make the investment here, small and medium companies are still very reliant on carriers to provide these services."

As the reality of convergence dawns the need to move beyond voice and data is becoming more apparent, with focus shifting to bringing together the distributed environments of LANs and WANs, public and private networks, as well as communications in, and out of the office.

"All these challenges are being address through technology, but an integrated approach is far more appealing to organisations, with services and applications mapped to the infrastructure. This is feasibly the only way to really achieve efficiencies," he adds.