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Moving on up: A look at business mobility

Jon Wilcox takes a look at some of the hardware and service solutions for business mobility, on show at the BT Business Experience.

The ability to complete business on the move, out of the office and home office, gives SMEs the opportunity to maximise their productivity. At the BT Business Experience, several solutions were on show, covering portable PCs, smartphones, and more original alternatives. It seems that even at the height of the recession, affordable business mobility solutions are within grasp for many small businesses.

The PC market has experienced some exceptionally tough times during this current recession, with sales slumps reports for several months. It may sound like the hardware market is in dire straits, but there is a shining light away from the troubled desktop and notebook PC solutions. First arriving in the UK two years ago, mini-notebooks (or netbooks) have found significant traction thanks to their portability and low cost. Increasingly standardised, business-orientated netbooks are now beginning to make their mark. Most of the big players in the mini-notebook sector, including Dell, HP, and Acer, are ramping up their solutions to fit with the demand for higher specification machines, without too much compromising on portability.

The explosion of smartphones is also continuing, with Microsoft weeks away from launch the latest version of its Windows Mobile software and Research in Motion continuing its push as the smartphone provider for businesses with the BlackBerry range. And let’s not forget about Apple and its iPhone. Business applications and usage on the move is increasingly becoming addressed, and with many smartphones now implementing Wi-Fi connectivity, faster data transfer rates mean increased productivity for the end user.

The BT Business Experience also included an alternative to netbooks however. RedFly’s mobile terminal proved to be one of the unusual technologies on show at this year’s BT Business Experience. Sporting a near full-size keyboard and monitor, the RedFly allows users to plug their Windows Mobile smartphones (BlackBerry support is scheduled for later in 2009) and utilise its functionality – including word processing – without having to use the unwieldy miniature QWERTY keyboard of the mobile device. Available for around £200, RedFly boasts an 8-hour battery life, and has the added benefit of saving users the cost of an extra mobile broadband contract.

BT’s wireless broadband infrastructure, including BT Openzone hotspots also means connectivity for subscribers is never far away for business users. Over 190k Wi-Fi hotspots are so far available across the UK and the Republic of Ireland, ensuring that even without a 3G dongle, business users are never far making that connection.