Wireless email in half of enterprises by 2007

Use of wireless data by enterprises will be driven over the next two to three years by the provision of access to email.

From this starting point the use of wireless will increase for other applications, according to the latest study by Meta Group. The analyst house forecasts that by 2007 around half of enterprises will have wireless email in place. However, thereafter most wireless projects will focus on field-force automation in areas such as route delivery, field sales and asset management.

Meta Group says the good news is that this trend generally points to an upswing in IT expenditure and wireless over the past six months.

However, the bad news for IT departments is that - often with little extra resource - they will be charged with supporting users of laptops, tablet PCs, PDAs and smart phones.