NEW YORK-Envision this scenario-for the price of a local phone call, mobile workers use personal digital assistants run by off-the-shelf software to routinely access their own computers wirelessly via the Internet, turning their PDAs into virtual offices.
The potential domestic market for such services is large and growing, according to Christopher Calisi, vice president of Symantec, a Cupertino, Calif., software developer.
According to some projections, the ranks of “remote” workers in this country-many of them mobile sales and service employees-will more than double to 50 million by 2000 compared with 20 million today, Calisi noted.
That means a third of the domestic work force will be remote employees by the turn of the century.
PDAs have been winning a popularity contest against laptop computers, Calisi said at the recent Internet World ’96 Show. Even so, the proprietary software systems that run them have proven complicated to end-users and therefore a stumbling block to wider consumer acceptance.
That is likely to change rapidly as a consequence of Microsoft Corp.’s late 1996 introduction of its Windows CE platform.
“Windows CE has the most potential of any handheld device to plug into fairly standard applications,” Calisi told RCR.
“Because these devices are so small, Windows CE and a wireless connection will let you dial up the computer in your office, control its Web servers, add contact names, transfer files, conduct general communications,” he said.
Transferring the intelligence of the computer over the air eliminates the need to bulk up the mobile device with internal memory and intelligence capacity.
This is all part of the emergence of “virtual private networks … Whereas a traveling computer uses a long-distance call to dial directly into the home office, now the user will be able to make a local call by some sort of access to the Internet,” Calisi said.
Among Symantec’s product lines is pc Anywhere, which allows this type of connection.
“We’re just starting to see this at the end of 1996. It’s just the tip of the iceberg,” he said, predicting that 1997-1998 will witness an explosion in `virtual private networks.’ “
For “disconnected workers” to use these communications tools, their companies will have to alter dramatically the structure of their internal management of information systems.
Calisi believes internal wide area networks will need to be supplanted by virtual private networks and outsourced to Internet service providers, saving companies considerable money on MIS overhead.
“Virtual private networks have been around for 15 years, but when you add the Internet, there are very different implications,” he noted.
However, before the promise of these technologies can be realized fully, several significant challenges must be met, Calisi cautioned. “Bandwidth is the biggest issue, and it has to be worked on or the whole Internet will come screeching to a halt.”
Additionally, today there are three competing protocols for enabling mobile users to tap virtual private networks.
There also are problems related to security and proper user authentication.
Finally, Internet service providers themselves must resolve technology and liability issues.
