It all begs the question: Whatever happened to the enterprise mobility dream of giving everyone that’s away from his or her desk access to at least e-mail via their mobiles if not direct access to corporate systems?

For a start, 3G hasn’t happened fast enough. Handsets weren’t clever enough and those that were, proved too expensive. Security wasn’t good enough – at least in the minds of IT managers preoccupied with threats to their wired networks. Device management was complex and limited. And there was still that physical and financial burden of having two handsets – one for mobile, the other for fixed line.

These are the challenges facing the mobile world as it enters 2006. They’re the challenges Nokia spelt out at its Avenues to Revenues Nokia Mobility Conference (NMC) in Barcelona at which it announced its strategy to overcome these barriers to enterprise mobility in the year ahead.

In tackling such issues, Nokia has gone beyond churning out handsets and expecting the next mobility revolution to miraculously happen. While it certainly has not neglected new product rollout – there were seven new handset models unveiled at NMC and three associated new generation business models launched a week earlier – the company has tackled enterprise mobility across the mobile infrastructure.

Operators have new compact and easily deployed 3G base stations as well as additional management and security tools; service providers get the ability to bring new offerings to market including secured services, device management and push to talk facilities; value added services developers have enhanced tools; enterprises have greater access control and enhanced security, affordable e-mail push servers and the technology to take advantage of converged VoIP infrastructures; and the end users have the handsets to be able to use the enhanced services and a lot more such as mobile television, music and enhanced quality photography.

Of course it all depends on the success of 3G going forward. Jorma Ollilla, Nokia’s President and CEO, told the 1,800 NMC delegates, he had no doubts about the future of 3G. “We see 3G quickly becoming mainstream which is why a half of all Nokia devices next year will support 3G.”

The company has seen a rapid growth in the 3G market since this summer both at the

operator and end user levels with demand for product increasing rapidly.

“We are the 3G market leader holding 35% of the market in the EMEA region, so we’re in a good position to see what’s happening and that’s a market taking off,” said Janne Jormalainen, VP Convergence Products, Multimedia.

Easing 3G deployment

From the operator perspective, Nokia sees its new small and modular 3G base station playing a crucial role. Because of its compactness, the new Nokia Flexi WCDMA Base Station will help operators realise site cost savings of up to 70% through reduced site construction work, quick base station installation and decreased power consumption.

“It’s a very small footprint – rather than being the size of a small elephant as used to be the case, it’s desktop PC size,” said Simon Beresford-Wylie, VP and GM, Networks, Nokia, holding the unit in his hands to demonstrate the point to delegates.

It can be installed indoors and outdoors and supports distributed base station architecture. The Flexi WCDMA can also be fitted inside existing Nokia UltraSite EDGE Base Station cabinets and will support future WCDMA and High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) technologies and allow operators to rapidly deploy new technologies, including WiMAX.

“It’s a future proof investment for the deployment of new technologies and is being called the new way to build 3G networks and will give Nokia a tremendous competitive advantage as well giving operators a competitive advantage,” he adds.

Converging technologies

Technology convergence and the opportunities it provides service providers and end users was very much the theme of the conference, which served as the launch-pad for Unified Core Network solutions for fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), as well as OMA-compliant Push to talk over Cellular (PoC) and Presence solutions.

The new release 2.0 of Nokia's PoC solution is available in Q1 2006. It provides compliance with the OMA standard, which enables full interoperability with OMA-compliant terminals and networks from other vendors. Release 2.0 also supports the Nokia List Management Server release 1.0, which allows subscribers to use a single list of contacts for multiple applications, such as PoC, Presence and Instant Messaging.

“We see 3G quickly becoming mainstream which is why a half of all Nokia devices next year will support 3G.”

Etisalat in the UAE has selected Nokia’s PoC network solution as well the Nokia Presence solution, which is based on open standards and provides support to PoC, as well as to many other applications. The Nokia Presence solution adds a whole new dimension to staying in touch by letting mobile subscribers know how and when they can reach their family, friends, or colleagues - before making a call.

With push to talk, people can use their mobile phones like walkie-talkies, communicating with a selected group or with individuals at the push of a button. Both business and private users can benefit from this simple, direct communication. Push to talk is especially suited for cases where users need to communicate occasionally but repeatedly with the same group or individual – hotel employee communication is seen as a key market for this technology in the region.

Nokia also launched its "Mobilising Wireless Data". This introduces data service continuity between cellular, wireless and wireline networks. The heart of this solution is the Nokia Flexi Intelligent Service Node (ISN), enabling operators to manage and add value to the data traffic they transport.

Prior to NMC Nokia unveiled three new solutions to help operators enhance their service offerings, win and retain customers, and check costs in ever-toughening markets. They were Service Level Management, Integrated Provisioning and Unified Device Management.

"Operators increasingly need to differentiate their service offerings to keep customer satisfaction high and subscriber turnover low. These solutions allow them to do just that," said Bosco Novak, Senior VP for Services, Networks, Nokia. "Convergence will mean greater technological challenges for operators, and here also our new solutions will make life easier for our customers."

Service Level Management allows operators to set and monitor service levels with key customers to ensure the agreed service quality is met, while Integrated Provisioning enables service, subscription and device management. Unified Device Management enables over-the-air SIM card management as well as the tools to manage PDAs and smart phones for corporate clients. It allows operators to quickly deploy the latest services to their customers.

Market to decide

At the end of the day, it’s the enterprise and its users that will have the final say in whether all these technologies are put to wide scale use, but Nokia has some convincing initiatives up its sleeves to move enterprise mobility to the masses.

In addition to PoC, such killer apps include push e-mail. Nokia hopes to take a big bite out of Research in Motion's BlackBerry business, with the introduction of its Business Centre server software which enables enterprises and service providers to support more business mobile business applications such as push e-mail. With Nokia Business Centre server anyone with Java MIDP 2.0-capable phones certified by Nokia can download the client so they can send and receive corporate e-mail.

With nearly 650 million corporate e-mail boxes yet to be mobilised and the converged mobile device market expected to double next year, Nokia sees this as a huge opportunity going forward.

“We expect the market for converged devices to double to 100 million units in 2006 and the bulk of these will be based on the S60 platform,” said Ollilla adding that Nokia’s new E Series models have been brought to market to enable business users to support business needs.

Nokia announced the addition of three new models to its portfolio of business-optimised devices days prior to NMC. The Nokia E60, Nokia E61 and Nokia E70 have been designed to allow businesses of all sizes to mobilise their workforce and incorporate new underlying technologies that allow IT departments to effectively manage security settings, corporate applications and data. They will be available in the first quarter of 2006.

In addition to Nokia’s push-mail technology, the new models support other mobile e-mail solutions. “We have worked very hard to make these devices the handset of choice for push e-mail by not only supporting our own solution, but also all the other popular push offerings – Blackberry, GoodLink, Seven Mobile Mail, Seven Always-On Mail, and Visto Mobile,” said Bob Brace VP Mobile Solution, Sales & Marketing, Enterprise Solutions.

The introduction of the E Series devices sets Nokia apart from some of its handset-maker competitors, according to Tony Cripps, wireless software analyst at Ovum. "Nokia can claim to have a true Blackberry alternative," he said.

End of desktop device

The new E Series include a variety of GSM frequencies and 3G (WCDMA) cellular network support for seamless roaming across different countries, as well as a range of local connectivity options such as WLAN, Bluetooth and Infrared and are USB 2.0 compatible.

“Fixed to mobile convergence could result in the death of the handset on the desktop.”

One key differentiator on the new series compared to the Blackberry devices is the Wi-Fi access. Nokia expects that enterprises can begin to allow workers to use the devices on corporate campuses to make and receive voice-over-Wi-Fi calls that are integrated with the corporate IP-PBX. Users could have one business number that reaches them via a wide area cellular network as well as via voice over Wi-Fi while on corporate campuses.

Ollilla said that in addition to benefiting from one number telephony, converged IP solutions would reduce costs for enterprises by eliminating dual infrastructures. In fact, Scott Cooper, Senior VP, Mobility Solutions, Enterprise Solutions, Nokia told NMC that “fixed to mobile convergence could result in the death of the handset on the desktop.”

Cooper added that although business decision makers believed only about 25% of their workforces use mobile telephones, research among the workforce itself has shown the figure to be closer to 50%, making the argument for leveraging converging technologies even stronger.

Companies deploying an Avaya or Cisco IP PBX can connect the new Nokia devices directly to their corporate phone networks, enabling functions employees have come to expect from a corporate network like four-digit dialling and assisted call answering. The company is also working with other standards-based VoIP solutions vendors as well as enabling handsets to support Internet-based VoIP solutions such as Skype

Security & management

With security being one of the barriers to wider mobile deployment in the enterprise, Nokia has beefed up security and management of its new business-optimised devices. They are the first in the industry to support remote device management based on OMA DM giving the IT manager powerful tools to remotely control and protect corporate data on the device and configure devices via device wipe, device lock or task management, application management and customisation, for example.

“One of the main concerns has been how to secure the devices and then their access to the networks. One of the E Series solutions is taking care of security and connectivity,” said Tarja Kantola, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Mobility Solutions, Enterprise Solutions, Nokia.

“When you are connecting to a business intranet then a whole set of issues come to play. You have to authenticate the user and the device. But ease of use is very important. Security is something that should be transparent. We wanted to take out complexity for the user,” she added.

At the device level, Nokia is partnering with Symantec to ensure threats are blocked and personal information protected from malware. The S60 based smart phones come with Symantec Mobile Security preloaded.

“There are not that many mobile viruses out there just yet, but as more of these devices come into use the more likely it is that viruses will emerge,” she adds.

Other security is built into the infrastructure with file encryption and network security platforms providing firewall and VPN access and communications protection. Nokia’s Mobile VPN is based on the IPSec protocol and is designed for Series 60 smart phones running Symbian and supports multiple encryption and public key algorithms. Nokia has developed Security Service Manager (SSM) to meets the needs of secure deployment. SSM is single point of management for a mobile VPN infrastructure that enables administrators to do initial provisioning wirelessly and automating updates to client policies and settings.

At the application level SSL security is used, such as with Nokia’s new push e-mail Business Centre solution. The solution offers a streamlined data transfer path that communicates directly with devices rather than the "store and forward" method used by most mobile e-mail solutions. In addition, Nokia Business Centre offers end-to-end encryption of data transport, storage and over-the-air synchronisation making a viable solution for even those enterprises with strict corporate security.

Nokia’s security solutions development strategy is to work through partners such as Symantec, Pointsec and CheckPoint. “We are not building a Nokia proprietary solution because it’s not our policy to do so. We are trying to use as many standard products as possible and work with key partners to develop and test solutions,” said Kantola.

Device management is also a prerequisite to wider adoption of smart phones in the enterprise. Whereas previous mobile handsets had limited management capabilities, the new generation Nokia devices are designed to be better managed in the enterprise, with S60 also now coming with a lot of APIs to enable integration with point and enterprise management solutions.

“Our aim is to provide tools for partners and companies to either provide management services or solutions to manage devices,” said Jouni Malinen, Venture Director, Local Interactions, Nokia Ventures Organisation. “Our suite of enablers is being used by many of our partners to build solutions.”

There are already 3rd party management services available from companies such as Fujitsu Services and the company is working with IBM to incorporate S60 device management in its Tivoli enterprise management suite.