A shortage of technology skills and business leaders is driving a healthy wireless data services market, as businesses "have to make the most" of the limited number of decision-makers.
This was the message delivered by Canadian Cory de Villiers, a business development manager for Research in Motion (RIM), at ITWeb`s Mobile and Wireless conference in Johannesburg, yesterday.
The lack of skilled local business people, as well as expensive fixed-line telephony, led De Villiers - who has been in the country for two years - to conclude: "SA is truly in a unique spot from a wireless data perspective."
It is an extremely attractive market for wireless data service providers, he said.
There are 25 000 BlackBerry users in SA, but PDAs (which in their broadest definition include smartphones and PalmTops) are even more pervasive, he said.
PDAs offer many advantages over fixed devices, including improving personal productivity through increased "uptime", increasing one`s flexibility and the immediacy of information, and they are often relatively cheap, he said.
Empowering people
Sadiq Malik, director of business development at BCT Global, encouraged people to think less about technology and infrastructure, and more about how wireless applications can change the way people work:
"Why is everyone so excited about devices? It`s a tap, isn`t it? Why are we excited about wireless networks? They`re just pipes. Why are you all so excited about plumbing?" he asked.
Changing the role of the manager to become a facilitator rather than a supervisor, to redefine the work day, to train and educate, and to analyse cultural challenges to mobility is one of the key factors in a company`s successful migration to a mobile environment, Malik noted.
People are the most important aspect of a successful mobility strategy, he emphasised, citing the cultural resistance example of a large hospitality chain, which deployed wireless devices to help waiters take drink orders at casino tables more efficiently.
"None of them are being used - they still insist on taking the orders manually, even though they have this R20 000 device."
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