The potential of Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) will be severely limited if it cannot be integrated into organisations` existing business applications.
"Businesses must be able to leverage the WAP opportunity immediately by integrating the new technology and existing information without re-writing any enterprise applications," says Mark Bowman, managing director of Dimension Data I-Commerce`s Software Division.
"Business applications need to be accessible to mobile phone users. Transactions that today are conducted using a PC must become possible via mobile phone."
To turn this scenario into reality, Dimension Data I-Commerce is focusing on becoming the first company to offer South African business the ability to integrate WAP with the enterprise.
"We will bring the enterprise to WAP," says Bowman. "There`s little point in embracing the new technology if it cannot access existing enterprise information.
"We want users to have access not only to the personalised information widely promised by WAP technology, but also to existing business information."
Dimension Data I-Commerce is ideally positioned to facilitate this integration because of its longstanding relationship with Software AG (SAG), world leader in the middleware solutions market.
"With middleware such as SAG`s EntireX, an organisation can extend WAP solutions to access enterprise data via mobile phone without extensive bespoke work," says Bowman. "Last year SAG announced its cooperation with Nokia Corporation on the development of WAP solutions, an important milestone for the convergence of mobile communications and the enterprise."
SAG`s EntireX enables businesses to add a middleware layer to legacy applications to bring mobile phones into the fold for businesses.
"We will offer the crucial link by enabling WAP-enabled phone to connect to existing applications," he says. "Our middleware products connect technology across multiple platforms, allowing applications to adapt to new technologies as they emerge."
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Dimension Data i-Commerce
Dimension Data i-Commerce assists organisations to interact electronically with their customers, suppliers, staff and investors through electronic channels, integrated with traditional channels. As an early pioneer of interactive commerce, Dimension Data is already positioned as South Africa`s leading enabler of a process that is redefining market places and the way businesses interact with each other.
Projected revenues for the interactive commerce business in FY 99/2000 are in excess of R2-billion, with a staff complement of 4500 employees. In the last quarter of 1999 the business secured in excess of lb50 million in new business in the UK market.
The business offering includes software, services, infrastructure and managed services, provided through a new structure that is aligned to market requirements in the new economy.