Mobility 2

[rliebsch]

So, here we are: 2007 is almost at a close.

Many of you I am sure have loads of users with Laptops and broadband into the home.

I'd wager most of you also have some sort of Blackberry, Treo, Windows Mobile wireless messaging delivery.

Further yet, I'd guess that 3G and EDGE cards are in use for wireless broadband so folks can work anywhere, anytime.

So, here it is. What are we doing next year?

One guess is unified messaging goes off the hook entirely. Messaging unification and convergence bring email, voicemail, calls, IM, etc to our WiFI capable handsets. Your desk phone becomes obsolete. Your desk number rings your handheld no matter where you are. Your voicemail becomes a WAV file in your inbox and is also on your handheld. I know most of this is possible now, but is it widespread? Is this our next big push?

Another thing I am contemplating is: Officeless office. Supporting/Managing/Training/On and Off boarding employees who may seldom if ever come into the office. How do you provide everything you would to your inhouse staff as you would your offsite workers.

Okay, so that is my end.

What do you have? What are you looking into? What is next?

rob


Robert Liebsch
Systems Psychologist,
Network Sociologist,
Security Pathologist,
User Therapist.

 

[xwb]

There are those of us for whom having the latest of everything before anyone else is a must and there are those of us who are willing to wait until the technology is proven and a necessity before we even begin considering it.

I'm in the second category: the sort who waits until things have been around a few years before I even try it. Then you know what works, what doesn't work (Windows ME) and whether the support infrastructure for it exists. No point getting a whizzy gadget which has features that you don't know how to use and that nobody can explain to you. Gadgets aren't an extension of my wardrobe and I'm happy with the old stuff.

Sure, I have a laptop: it is so old, nobody will nick it even when it was left in the back seat in a public car park for days on end. Great for emails, spreadsheets and writing docs. This will only get replaced when it stops working or 100Mbit networks cease to exist.

Do I need the speed of the new machines? No.
Will I work any faster with a new machine? No.
Will internet browsing be any faster on a new machine? No - the analogy is that a Porsche following behind a tractor travelling at 40mph can only go at 40mph. It cannot go any faster even though it is capable of speeds in excess of 130mph. The world's fastest processor will not talk to a mainframe any faster if it is connected via a 56K modem!!!

I have a mobile phone too: only use it for phone and text. Even with current mobiles, the service isn't fantastic. Some people have to pace up and down just to get a continuous signal. Text messages, however, would get through. Your very expensive phone now has the same capabilities of something one tenth its price. In 5 years time, I reckon I'll still have the same phone and have probably worked out how to play one of the games. Anyway, if you work in the UK defence industry, camera phones are not allowed. What annoys me about mobiles is how long they take to start up: at least 15 to 30 seconds. The new ones are even slower.

3G sounds good but can the service providers cope when push comes to shove? What is the service like at lunchtime? Will it be as bad as browsing the internet at lunchtime or at 1430UTC when North America wakes up? Will people start talking louder and while not observing traffic? Will the price of ear cleaning products rise when people forget that they're using video phones and put them to their ears. I can see some peoples' need to show off or to feed an addiction (internet browsing) but I can't honestly see a business need.

GPS navigation: you learn about the surrounding area when you get lost but with a GPS, theoretically, you do not get lost. In fact, since you're listening to instructions, do you actually notice the roadsigns and landmarks? If, say, there were sunspots or some atmospheric condition, which caused the GPS to stop working, would you be able to find the place again? I'll keep to a road atlas: more fun when your navigator says left meaning right and you turn left. Even more fun when they say that way or turn up.

Flat screen teles? I'm still using my portable that I got in 1980. Maybe it will need a topset box when they switch over to digital but it is portable, it works so why bother changing.

Watching DVDs on iPods - I'm not in that category. I prefer screens with reasonable resolution and hate listening to stuff through headphones. What amazes me is people's inability to cope with surrounding noise. They wear noise cancellation headphones (BOSE type) and don't notice bicycles coming behind them. Whenever you talk to them, you have to repeat yourself because they never hear you the first time.

PDAs: I was given one in 1985 when I was team leading a project. Never found a need for it except as a quick access database which started up faster than a PC/mobile phone.

 

[rliebsch]

Excellent contribution.

So in the next year, your projects include being a curmudgeon. stomping your feet and saying no.

Thank you so much for the insight into your technology planning for the next year. Most insightful.


Robert Liebsch
Systems Psychologist,
Network Sociologist,
Security Pathologist,
User Therapist.

 

[kmcferrin]

You know, it really depends on what sort of work you're in. You might be able to get away with being a luddite, or a "1997's technology is good enough for me" type, but other people do move on.

For example, at my last employer we began widely deploying EVDO (Verizon's version of EDGE/2.5G wireless broadband) for our laptop users so that they could be available 24/7 on call, even if they were away from a landline. The only issue that I have with it is that it's slower than landline broadband. It's definitely faster than a 56K modem, but nowhere near Cable/DSL speeds.

Smart phones are great for consultants like myself who only make it into the office 2-3 times a month, because they allow us to keep up to date via email. Sure, you can check your email via OWA several times a day, but it's more convenient to have the phone check for you every 10 minutes and then alert you if there's any new messages. And don't forget that many of these smart phones can also be tethered to laptops to provide EVDO/EDGE service to the laptop as well.

You are right that unified messaging is going to see a big push. Microsoft is finally getting behind it, and most telcos (at least in the states) have been pushing IP-based PBX systems for the last couple of years. At first I didn't see a lot of benefit to them either, but lately I've seen some pretty interesting applications.

For example, the hospital that I used to work for had cordless phones for nurses and techs to communicate with each other and the nurses station. We were getting ready to replace those with a dual mode WiFi/Cellular handset that ran on the IP PBX. Because it would be as much a smartphone as a phone, the telemetry system could send it data on patients in realtime, along with any alarms. And since it worked on cellular networks, the nurse managers and supervisors could take them home (or to off-site meetings) and still be able to keep in touch. While that doesn't sound like much, the key point was that we would be able to consolidate the equivalent of a desk phone, pager, cellphone and portable telemetry station into a single handheld device. That was really exciting technology there.

But on top of that, the ubiquity of home broadband means that you really could assign workers a SIP phone that they could take home and plug into a VPN connection that would then patch them back into the PBX. Nobody would know that they weren't at their desk without actually stopping by it to check. Or you could even go with software-based IP phones for that matter and save even more money. Either way, it gets around one of the single biggest issues with telecommuting.

But again, it all depends on what your company does. A tech company or a sales organization might feel perfectly comfortable letting half of their work force telecommute and connect via VPN and VOIP. But there are a lot of professions that just don't lend itself to this very well.

 

[Sympology]

Actually I believe XWb raised some good points. Many people are now adopting, they "WHY?" attitude. Even major corps are doing this.

You say most people have blackberry's, 3G etc. Really? I'm looking around out office off 100 people. Not one has a cackberry and maybe a few have 3G, but that would be there own personal choice.
We don't tend to issue smart phones as a rulle (about 5% ratio) as our policy is to issue more sensible ones. i.e things with a good battery life and that can be dropped and still work. Wizzo graphics and a million features are all well and good, but if you battery dies 5 mins into a conversation, what use is the dammed thing?
Often predictions go widly wrong, because not everyone follows the latest super latest and greatest. The Wii is a great example. Does it have the best Visual & Audio experience, Nope, but yet it is the best selling of the current crop of consoles. Betamax was better than VHS, DAT better than CD/R, so not alsways the lastest and greatest will prevail.
you want another example (please fanboys don't start this into a X vs Y). But look at the rise of Vista...exactly. Many people are sticking with XP for now. Sure Vista has the bells and whistles, but XP "will do", works and is often better.
IT compnies year in year out push the "next big thing", often how the home "network" will happen. Well they have been saying that for a decade now and it's still not happend. Sure some techies and enthusiasts have fully rigged home multimedia empires, but does the average Joe? Nope.
There is always a factor many companies cost !

Sure someone can make a PVR, Plasma, PC and receiver all in one. But sorry I don't want to fork out £5,000 when my receiver packs up. When the one I currently have would cost £20 to replace.
VHS was cheaper
Wii was cheaper
CD/R was cheaper

No back to some point you raised:

Voicemail to WAV / WiFi phones etc we can already to do this, but the problem agian is cost. Mail server and often networks need upgrading, getting decent hadover on WiFI phones can be a bit hit and miss. Sometime it's great other times appaling.

I'm all for working at home, but as you said, many companies are a bit stuck in the mud, they simply don't trust the employees, despite survey after survey saying they are more productive.

SIP phones are a great way to work at home, but often you'll hit a firewall of resistance!, Then you have support issues for home workers. They have a problem connecting for example. Who is it down to fix? The user, the ISP or the IT staff. Great if the IT department is well staffed, but in many places there simply aren't the staff to cover these sort of issues.

So I'm guess I'm saying that, unless a business (or even consumer) see's a ROI, a real benifit to the end user, then certain technologies will fail, no matter how good they are.
Want to buy a Laserdisc anyone?


Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004

 

[rliebsch]

but... The question is...

What strategic IT projects are YOU involved with in the coming year?

It isn't a consumer space question. It isn't a personal or end user oriented question. What are the strategic outlay of IT resources, for the coming year.

Robert Liebsch
Systems Psychologist,
Network Sociologist,
Security Pathologist,
User Therapist.

 

[lionelhill]

As a technical user, I'll just settle for a system that continues to do what it's supposed to do. I'd guess that in my daily life, only about 20% of my problems are new things I wish I had but don't, and the other 80% are things I once had that have either stopped working, or developed erratic behaviour, or now only work with downgraded convenience and performance.

It's not that I'm a luddite. It's just that the primary reason for something's existence has to take priority. Domestic example: my digital set-top box does crash from time to time (picture freezes, have to turn it off and on again and then everything's fine). I'd rather its manufacturer sort that out before they try to make it handle internet banking and manage the contents of my fridge.

 

[grande]

I think we're going to see a reduction in Web 2.0 next year. User generated content is great, but people are starting to realise that users are stupid, hahaha. More professional design will be on the horizon, just you watch.

I also think we'll see something new in online magazines... I'm not sure what just yet, but currently magazines are just websites, nothing special. I recently saw this (

http://www.inburlington.com/)

and was pretty impressed with it.

As far as hardware goes, processers will get faster, hard drives will get bigger. Ho hum, nothing too exciting.

iPhone will go the way of the Newton OR iPhone will be opened up to third-party software and become insanely popular.

Other companies will make a better, cheaper iPhone-type device, but no one will buy it.

-------------------------
Matt Grande
C# Master.
Ruby on Rails Admirer.
ActionScript Student.
JavaScript Hate-Monger.

 

[Sympology]

Actually I think we are going to start seeing the death of the Hard Drive, not this year, but it's use will dimish. 30gig solid state drives are out there, pricey, but faster, quieter, and more reliable.
I remember when a 1gb drive would knock you back £500, so year on year the drives will swap positions, with Solid state becoming the most dominate.

Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004

 

[Opieo]

I agree with Stu for the standard users of hard drives.
For anyone who only needs those 30 GB.
It will probably be quite awhile before a 500GB SSD is reasonably priced.
For the data hoarders (such as myself with anime) it will be a long long time before we switch over to solid state drives. Just too expensive for the space we need.
For corporations, they will probably make the switch sooner as they have the money. But I still do not see them stocking up on SSDs for users for a long time since the average worker doesn't demand that much extra speed. And since their machines are not high powered gaming machines that vent as much heat, they are in general sufficiently quiet already.
I do see SSDs coming up, just not quite so soon as 2008 (again, unless its for a large corporation, and then only for their main computers, not for workers).

~
Give a man some fire, he will be warm for a day, Set a man on fire, he will be warm for the rest of his life.

 

[kmcferrin]

I don't know if you've looked at the hard disks that go inside most corporate machines (the mass-manufactured Dell/HP/etc models), but they're not speed demons by any stretch. Most of the ones I have seen are 7200 RPM 2MB cache 40 GB disks. They're slow...very slow. And right now, they're fast enough for most users. You don't typically see higher-end drives (16MB cache, perpindicular recording, etc) until you start buying workstation class PCs.

I think that the only place that SSDs are really going to make significant inroads in the next couple years will be laptops. They use less power, they're still fast, they're a tad lighter, and the reduced capacity is less of an issue (laptops already have small hard disks to begin with). For a desktop/workstation perspective, they just don't offer a significant speed boost in everyday tasks for the money. Right now hard disks are dirt cheap, SSDs, not so much.

The other thing that I recall is that certain (most?) kinds of flash memory have a limited number of read/write cycles. I wouldn't want to pay more for an SSD drive only to discover a couple of years later that it died because I exceeded the read/write cycle threshold.

 

[Knackster]

Here's what I have planned:

My infrastructure is based on an old design dating back to NT3.51. It's been upgraded (OS on OS on OS) so that now we're at win2k server on servers that are 7 years old. Exchange2k in mixed mode, AD in mixed mode, and everythign runs smoothly, albeit not fast.

So, I have 3 new servers for the new year:
New DC with a new domain name.
New Ex2k7 server.
New win2k3 Terminal Server.

The older servers, once migrated to the new domain, will get their data archived and then delegated to backup duty ( file or print server) or just retired.

We just got a BES for 7 users and it's great. I plan on adding 5 more users next year.

We are also running a Nortel BCM 400 v4.0 with 30 users. 50/50 digital and IP sets. I'll be deploying VPN's off of our Watchguard so that we can have softphones on our laptops or desk sets at our homes.

I just completed a Polycom HDX 9001 install so that we can eliminate monthly trips to the corporate office and save roughly 70k a year. So far, in 3 weeks of use, we have saved almost $10k in flights and hotels.

I guess I should let you in on what we do:

We are a concrete company: 70 trucks, 5 plants, open pit sand mine.

We use thin clients at the plants and VoIP for comms. T1's for interconnects where feasable.

Also, I am a one man IT department and I love it.

Chris
IT Manager
Houston, Texas

 

[jsteph]

Knackster,
What sort of software do you use for ticketing and/or truck tracking? Just curious, I'm in IT with a concrete comany as well,
--Jim

 

[jrbarnett]

From my perspective, I can see:
* More organisations redesigning their applications/web sites to comply with disability access legislation in their own geographical area.

* Wider use of open standards at the expense of proprietary systems across the board as people realise that vendor lock in towards specific tools/technologies controlled by one organisation are not good in the end.

John

 

[Knackster]

Jim,

We're currently using Command Alkon's complete suite for aggregates, concrete, and batch control. We're at version 57.9.22.

I am hoping that by summer of next year we will be running the top end Command Fleet so I can get rid of the single server for the Comamnd signalling units and the single server for the Trimble truck signalling units since both companies require that they sit on a stand alone server. ( thank god for eBay and HP Netserver 1000 1u servers on the cheap)

Chris
IT Manager
Houston, Texas

 

[monkeylizard]

Nothing leading edge here. Document Imaging is our push.
750 employees.
A 200 person department has been using imaging for about 10 years. We'll be rolling it out to another 300 in 2008, with the remainder to follow.

Monkeylizard
Sometimes just a few hours of trial and error debugging can save minutes of reading manuals.

 

[pmonett]

For my tech future I plan on still not being joinable outside of work hours (by switching the bloody thing off), working from home as much as possible where my co-workers cannot bother me with incessant phone chatter, and most definitely not having any IT-related object other than my laptop and mobile phone (which I hate with a passion).

You want me to stomp my feet to ? Can do ! ;-)

Pascal.


I've got nothing to hide, and I'd very much like to keep that away from prying eyes.

 

[Knackster]

One more thing that I plan on for the upcoming year is one centralised web page that will give me a good overview of my domian: everything from network status, event logs, all based on open source software.

Might be a reach but would definately be a fun project.

Chris
IT Manager
Houston, Texas

 

[jimbojimbo]

From the standpoint of "bleeding edge technology" I'm there. As a VoIP VAR I try to stay ahead of the pack. My cellphone is Windows Mobile based but I have an overlay that basically makes my cellphone an extension off of the PBX. I do have a softphone app available and wireless but with unlimited local minutes why bother with the inconvenience and the security issues. Have been "officeless" for over 7 years. Have only been to a corporate site about a dozen times over those 7 years. Forget e-mail, v-mail, etc.. that is "web" or application based. Voice recognition. Call in and my v-mail/e-mail is read to me. I can also respond (Avaya UCC). The advent of the SSD will enable enhancements to PC "hot bedding". Wear your SSD around your neck. Push your SSD into a slot. Boot the computer from your SSD device. Pop it out at the end of the day. Web 2.0 is good for the hardware/bandwidth providers but who wants to pay premium $$ for the extra bandwidth? Streaming content will continue to have large advancement in volume but I think it is unrealistic to expect real-time collaborative video to work reliably across the internet until all ISP's get together and are able to offer premium content delivery. This may be a problem if Congress pushes "Equal Access".

Standby for Real-Time Adaptive Communications (RAC). Automation of Presence applications. Walk out the front door and your e-mail out-of-office comes on, your notified of e-mail on you Personal Communicaiton Device (PCD). It may be a Cell Phone but I expect to see the "belt" PC with Bluetooth and some sort of clumsy HID for visual (generation 1). It probably won't be holographic glasses for several years yet. Don't forget your solar cell ball cap to keep charging.

Current projects???? Expanding our collaboration platform with improvements to Video. Also looking to expand our CRM integrations and automated processes.

Business Integration is the new hype. Company A has a process failure. Computers monitoring manufaturing process automatically schedule a conference call with manager, technical staff and 3rd party support. Automatically dial-out and bring all parties in. B2B presence integration finds primary tech is on vacation in Bali so contacts 1st alternate.

Data mining will continue to be huge. Want to target a demographic of 25-30 year old pre-operative transexuals with incomes of 50-75K and own houses worth <250K? It's possible and probable. Don't even think you have privacy on the net.

Does your HDTV Plasma Screen work two-way? Why push for all digital by 2009. I really don't want President Hilary looking in my bedroom. Put a TV card in your PC and see if you can pull an IP Address on the cable connection. Brings a new meaning to reality TV. Of course you have to figure out which country is watching you. Where is your TV manufactured?