Wireless connectivity is coming to the enterprise, either with the enterprise’s tacit approval or without it. Research In Motion Ltd. announced earlier this month that more than 2 million people are using its PDAs. Nearly all laptops are designed with built-in 802.11 chips. Savvy companies will address wireless as part of an employee’s technology needs and integrate wireless offerings with the rest of their employees’ computing needs.
During a discussion on mobility in the workplace at CTIA’s I.T. show this fall, a Motorola Inc. employee said a global multinational corporation estimated that as many as 40,000 unauthorized PDAs were connecting to that company’s internal computer network. Large companies aren’t so worried about the monthly cost of communications services for these devices as they are about the potential for the devices to inadvertently corrupt their networks.
Wireless in the workplace blurs traditional lines separating business and personal life, and as such is a little more complicated for businesses to figure out. Who owns your cell phone? You or your business? Cell phones by their very nature are personal devices. As such, people, especially prosumers, are likely to have business contacts intermingled with babysitters’ names and doctors’ numbers in their personal directories. The person may own the device, but the business likely pays part or the entire wireless bill-if the handset or PDA is used extensively for business.
As businesses find ways to manage these dual-purpose devices, they likely will find a number of ways to account for them. One executive told me that information technology departments will always issue laptops and service connections associated with the laptop, whether it’s a wireless or wired connection. But phones, smart phones and increasingly PDAs will remain personal devices first. However, if an employee wants to use that personal device to connect to the business’ internal network, the employee will have to use a handset from a list of approved devices issued by the IT department.
While at first blush it will look like communications fees are rising at companies, the good news for business is that productivity likely will go up too. After all, if it becomes easy to glance at your e-mail while watching your daughter’s soccer game, you’re probably going to do so. Just don’t do it too often-or let her catch you doing it.
