Cost reductions and productivity increases are the two factors that will motivate South African businesses to implement wireless applications, predicts Deon Roos, Oracle9i product manager, Oracle SA,
Announcing new mobile functionality in Oracle9i Application Server (AS) Release 2, he says organisations today want hard return on investment (ROI) facts before they will consider implementing mobile applications.
"New generation mobile apps are certainly rising to this challenge rather than simply offering nice-to-have features," he says.
Roos quotes a recent iGillott Research report that found mobile e-mail and personal organisers (PIMs) save employees five to six hours a week and that the average ROI in a mobile application is four months.
Mobile CRM, for example, was found to result in a 10% average reduction in calls to the customer service centre and reduce the cost per customer transaction by 90%.
The report also found that companies with a mobile field service operation could save 15% in the cost per service call.
"These are the sort of mobile apps we see being rolled out pretty quickly this year. In fact, the latest Oracle9i AS, which is a complete platform for the development, deployment and management of mobile applications, now includes built-in mobile services such as e-mail and PIM," he adds.
In addition to these built-in mobile applications, new wireless and voice features in Oracle9i AS Release 2 include enhanced support for voice access to Internet applications, wireless messaging, wireless security, location-based services and support for 2.5G and 3G networks.
Roos says that while the early adopters of wireless technology in SA were the banks and communications companies, he sees the new mobile features in Oracle9i AS driving wireless applications into wider markets in the year ahead with access not only via digital devices such as PDAs, notebooks and other mobile equipment.
"We also consider voice to be a device - and it`s a device that is going to play an ever-increasing role in mobile technology from accessing information remotely to delivering messages on the move. This is why Oracle introduced breakthrough new voice capabilities in our new Oracle9i AS version.
"Text-to voice technology is evolving very quickly, so in our latest version of Oracle9i AS we`re supporting all the popular voice gateways as well as the main developments in voice alert technology that will warn users of events that need attention or simply about in-coming e-mail," he adds.
In addition to its support of voice applications, and built-in e-mail and PIM, Oracle9i AS Release 2 also includes new features such as scaleable and flexible programming interfaces that enable J2EE applications to send messages to any messaging-enabled device over any protocol, including SMS, standard e-mail, text page, fax or automated voice call; enhanced support for secure wireless transactions; location-based services enablement; and 2.5G and 3G network support.
A carrier-grade mobile commerce solution featuring seamless integration with leading electronic payment systems is also included. This ensures secure mobile transactions from any mobile device, using any means of payment, including credit cards, micro-payments, existing online merchant accounts or monthly wireless bills.
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