Spiral Arm News

Mobile technology in the supermarket.

Tesco have found a time saving of eight hours a week by providing managers with mobile email, calendaring and to do lists. They are now extending the programme by equipping shop floor managers with MC50 smartphones, making applications such as stock enquiries available in the store.

On the consumer side, Waitrose shoppers can use SMS to check on the ingredients of a recipe while they are shopping. The service, also reported in Checkout, allows users to select up to five recipes at the Waitrose web site, and have the ingredients list sent to their phones.

Reported in Computing, 17 November 2005, p. 4 and 14.

"No organisation can ignore mobile for much longer".

"The bigger issue is what you do with it, and how you blend it with existing technology and processes to ensure a sustainable fit." Computing report that the UK now has more mobile phones (63m) than citizens.

Users reluctant to secure mobile devices.

A survey by security software company Pointsec reports that as many as a third of smartphone and PDA users are not using passwords to protect data on their devices. Sensitive data needed protection includes: business contacts (81%), emails (45%), other corporate data (27%), business dairy (65%), and customer details (14%).

Although the survey, reported in Computing, is based on just 73 interviews and cannot be described as independent, it seems likely that there are barriers to protecting information on mobile devices. Encryption technologies are freely available, suggesting that design and usability are the determining factors in securing devices.

Smart phone sales further reduce PDA market.

The Register reports on the slide in PDA sales: worldwide they fell 16.7 per cent in 2005 Q3 compared to 2004 Q3, according to IDC. However the low-end element of the market is stronger than the high-end.

The market leader is still Palm:

1. Palm (33.8% market share)


2. HP (23.6%)


3. Acer (11.2%)


4. Dell (9.6%)


5. Mio (5.1%)


6. Other vendors (16.8%)

Palm's Treo smart phone sells more units than the companies PDAs, and the company strengthened its commitment to the market by opening a research centre to create "custom smart-phone applications for its European, Middle Eastern and African carrier customers".

Overall, smart phone sales continue to rise (also reported in The Register). "And in a sign that buyers want phones with PDA functionality, rather than PDAs that can make calls, Nokia and Motorola proved the most successful mobile device players in the calendar quarter".

Smart phone shipments were up 75% comparing 2005 Q4 to 2004 Q3, according to Canalys. The leaders are now:

1. Nokia (54.8% market share)


2. Palm (8.1%)


3. RIM (7.5%)


4. Motorola (5.3%)


5. HP (4.2%)

Business recognizes the need to make more applications mobile.

Business use of mobile devices to access email is widespread, but
Quocirca research, reported in
Computing, indicates the demand for access to other business applications "is close to a tipping point".

"Almost 60 per cent of businesses recognised a forthcoming need to enable applications other than email for remote access. This includes such diverse requirements as access to customer data for sales staff; access to inventory data for field engineers; filing vehicle inspection reports in the transport industry; and access to patient records in hospitals. For some this will involve accessing widely used packages from vendors such as Oracle and SAP, but most will also need to integrate more specialist packaged and bespoke applications developed in-house. Mobile enablement of many of these will need to start from scratch."