This is the view of Gerard Sofianos, product manager at Sybase, who was discussing the next generation of network services at the First Tuesday thought leaders forum at the Sandton Convention Centre yesterday.
According to Sofianos, the industry has moved from centralised computing in the 60s, through distributed computing in the 80s, all the way to networked computing in the new century, and he believes that we will see the unwired enterprise by 2005.
"The convergence of standards and technologies is making it far easier for us to operate in a truly mobile world," he says.
"Of course, people need to realise that there are numerous mobile technologies out there - such as the 802.11 standards, GPRS and Bluetooth, for example - and we need to leverage all of them, as there is no single 'horse` that will take us into the mobile arena."
He says that there are innumerable benefits from living in a mobile world, such as better productivity and increased operational efficiency. Other benefits include enhanced responsiveness, ease of access to organisational information from anywhere and improved data collection opportunities.
"There are numerous challenges facing true mobility too. There are the inevitable connectivity and bandwidth issues, as well as the problems of different mobile technologies that have to be embraced, and - most importantly of all - security," says Sofianos.
"Ultimately, if one wants to see a truly wireless world, the industry will have to ensure that the issues of "transactionality" and security are the foundation blocks of any mobile business, while mobile solutions must also extend and leverage off the existing architecture where they can and embrace Web technologies wherever possible."
"Flexibility and openness are the key ingredients in any strategy, since one has to remember that in regards to mobility especially, one shoe does not fit all."
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