- Mobile Enterprise
Mobile Enterprise (Mobile ERP) is a collection of Online Interactive Business Applications made possible by
Mobile Broadband .Cellular Network s withGPRS andUMTS are connected to theInternet viaMedia Gateway s. Mobile Enterprise servesHSDPA andHSUPA . Mobile messaging technologies, such asSMS andE-mail , also support enterprise mobility.Business modules, functions and operations executed using Mobile Enterprise include
Collaboration ,Document management system (DMS),Customer relationship management (CRM),Point of sale (POS),Human resource management systems (HRMS),Accounting software ,Enterprise resource planning (ERP), includingsales order ,sourcing ,tender ,request for Quotation ,purchase order ,shipment , receiving,warehousing ,inventory control ,delivery order ,invoicing , customer service order, production monitoring and control,work order , as well as basic utilities such as corporate calendar, corporate address book, corporate bulletin board, notes and internal messaging.The next phase of mobility for business will go considerably beyond e-mail. Businesses need their employees to access from their phones the same line of business applications they access from their PC today. Mobile workers should be able to search their network for information just like they do from their office PCs and IT administrators need to know theycan securely manage mobile devices on the network in the same way they manage PCs today. All of these advancements will promote a deeper partnership between businesses and operators who offer these new types of services and mobile devices. (Delivering the Platform forNext-Generation Mobile Communications Services - Pieter Knook, senior vice president, Mobile and Embedded Devices Division, Microsoft)
Benefits
With the Mobile enterprise platform in place, entire businesses can be easily, quickly and economically moved onto the internet. Enterprise databases can be remotely accessed and updated from anywhere in the world, at anytime, with any device equipped with a
Web Browser and by anyone with permission to access the service. Mobile Enterprise is real-time and fits the Just In Time (JIT) business strategy. Mobile Enterprise leverages existingInternet infrastructure andTCP/IP installations. It is economical to implement and easy to use. Mobile Enterprise is not limited to mobile handsets. It is convergent technology, whereby the applications are, at the same time, accessible using laptops and desktops over land lines andWi-fi networks.On mobile decision support, Linus Parker, UK managing director of ERP company
Intentia , says: 'Sales teams will be able to check stock levels, undertake product configurations and order processing - all in real time. In the area of finance, there will be the opportunity to check the status of debtor days and cash flow.' [Mini case 7.2 Mobile decision support
]The future is mobile. As workforce mobility takes on a bigger role in Asia, SMBs can no longer afford to ignore the critical business benefits of going mobile. Their employees get to make use of their time effectively, and also remain relevant in the ever-changing marketplace. It is important for SMBs to embrace the concept of workforce mobilization if they want to remain competitive in the future. Says Grace Ho Director, Business Segment Solutions, Asia Pacific for Mobile Communications Business Division at Microsoft in her article "The power of mobile computing for SMBs" (06-Aug-2007)
'The ability to provide services over the air affords a competitive advantage in the speed to deliver, and the pricing of, services. This untethered connection has a broad appeal to both the consumer and the enterprise. It enables the delivery of business, personal, social and entertainment services to areas that would not normally have been able to receive such services. In business, the benefits of a ubiquitous network connection lie in the immediate access it provides to corporate networks outside of the office walls. The untethered feature of wireless extends the enterprise and aids productivity' [Characteristics of Wireless Access Networks Chapter 6: Wireless Access Networks
cite book |last=Carty |first=Glen |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Broadband Networking |year=2002 |publisher McGraw-Hill/Osborne |location= |isbn=0-07-219510-X]SMS is also a good tool for enterprises to enhance corporate communications. Because SMS is ubiquitous, simple and a low-cost technology, as well as having a large user-base around the world, companies can implement SMS tools easily, through PC-based SMS tools and/or integrated SMS applications (through API -Application Programming Interface ). Enterprises can integrate SMS also into mission-critical processes and applications in several fields, such as logistics and operations.Quality and reliability of
SMS delivery are, however, important consideration in the enterprise market, especially in such mission-critical procedures. The lack of guarantees in areas such as security, confidentiality, reliability and speed of SMS messaging has in practice pigeonholed the use of SMS in the mobile enterprises to non-critical and sensitive information, while it has the potential for much more. An important step towards promoting the role of SMS in the enterprise market would be the introduction of SLAs (Service Level Agreement s), which are a standard practice in the world of enterprise IT. This spells out the guarantees theSMS gateway is able to provide about the quality of their services.Disadvantages
The Mobile Enterprise depends entirely on the
Internet as its infrastructure. The system breaks down when a user cannot connect to theInternet . The system does not work in places where Internet service is not available. The system is disrupted whenever the Internet suffers a disruption such as when underwater data cables are damaged by earthquakes as in the case of the2006 Hengchun earthquake or2008 submarine cable disruption in the Middle East that disrupted internet service between the Middle East and Europe.ASP revival
Corporate databases and business applications can now be hosted as
Software as a service (SaaS ), giving a new lease of life to theApplication service provider (ASP) business model. The ASP Business model, in turn, enablesERP On Demand .How it works
The back-end of a Mobile Enterprise is a
Web server and aRelational Database such asMSSQL ,MySQL andOracle Database , hosted in aData Center with Internet connection.At the user end is a
Web Browser such asMSIE ,Mozilla Firefox ,Opera (web browser) ,Safari (web browser) andNetFront .Menu items are linked to programs written in
Perl CGI (Common Gateway Interface ), Java,JavaServer Pages (JSP),Active Server Pages (ASP) andPHP ,JavaScript andAJAX , with embeddedHTML form elements and database queries. When the form is submitted http requests are sent to the web server using theHTML post or get functions. With the help ofODBC ,JDBC orDBI database connection interface, the web server runs the program, executing the database query to the database. The program is also responsible for channeling the query results as anHTML file and sent back to the user. The applications can be used to read, add, update, delete database entries.Minimalistic approach
As for all mobile applications, simplicity and minimalism is of utmost importance to minimize upload and download time for best user experience. Images are best avoided because of the client devices such as mobile handsets and
PDA s display size limitations. Icons may not be readable in small displays.ecurity issues addressed
Security is enabled by the use of
Secure Socket Layer (SSL), with 128 bit encryption, a client-less security solution supported by mostWeb Browser s andWeb server s. Additional wireless encryption layers can be added. Since the Server is hosted in a Data Center under lock and key and subject to stringent access control imposed, with 24 hours' CCTV surveillance, moreover, the data can only be accessed via the applications, it is considered to be more secure than traditional hosting in the customer's own premises usingIPsec VPN . AServer Log provides added security assurance. In short, it is, at least, as secure asMobile Banking .There are also ways to make the use of
SMS in enterprises much more secure. Most SMS providers work on the aggregator model, where an SMS is passed from the provider to one or moremobile operator s, until it is delivered to the recipient. As a side-effect of this model, no delivery receipt can be provided for the message in most cases, and also the message is stored on one or more third-partySMS-C s before it is finally delivered to the recipient. Ideally the SMS provider should have their own SMS-C and a direct access to theSS7 network, which will enable them to deliver the message without intermediaries and also provide a delivery receipt, guaranteeing maximum security of the sensitive enterprise messages.References
Chapter 3 Mobile Computing
Chapter 6 Online Auctions, Virtual Communities, and Web Portals
Part II Wireless Internet Applications
9 Applications
Chapter 4 The World Wide Web without Wires
10.4.4.6 Mobile Integration
ee also
*
Software as a service
*Communication as a service
*Application service provider
*Secure Virtual Office
*SaaS platform
*Utility Computing
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