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Story URL: http://networks.silicon.com/mobile/0,39024665,39169869,00.htm

Virtual tech will 'kill the office'
Nortel CTO looks to Second Life...

By Natasha Lomas

Published: Thursday 31 January 2008

In an enterprise context, says Edholm, this would mean 'application transparency' - or "that all of a sudden, regardless of where I am, I can have the same applications whether I'm in a nomadic location or not".

Wireless from A to Z

Click on the links below to find out more…

A is for Antivirus
B is for Bluetooth
C is for The Cloud
D is for dotMobi
E is for Email
F is for FMC
G is for GPS
H is for HSDPA
I is for i-mode
J is for Japan Air
K is for Korea
L is for LBS
M is for M2M
N is for NFC
O is for Operating systems
P is for Pubs
Q is for QoS
R is for Roaming
S is for Satellite
T is for TV
U is for UMTS
V is for Virgin
W is for WiMax
X is for XDA
Y is for Yucca
Z is for Zigbee

He told silicon.com: "In the enterprise world the big reason/driver why we'll go to WiMax is this application transparency... And that has huge impact on business. Because all of a sudden where you do business is no longer constrained."

But while being able to push work beyond the four walls of the office will offer enterprises new - and potentially lucrative - opportunities for doing business, it does present other challenges. As Edholm points out: "As people become less and less tethered to a location, finding the right person at the right time to do a business function is going to become critical."

Bringing comms and applications together to give an intelligent view of the status of a disparate workforce will therefore be increasingly important - factors such as a person's availability, location and even their velocity. For instance, he points out, if you're driving a car, you probably don't want to get a video call.

He added: "Information and interaction are coming together and it's not going to be information technology it's going to be information and interaction technology in a few years."

Gazing a little closer into the future, the next generation of wireless LAN tech - 802.11n - may be able to cut dependency on cables within buildings. Edholm said: "We think we can actually generate by 2010/2011, the capacity of building buildings without wires - which means regardless of where you are within the building you're going to get the same experience."

He added: "The interesting question is when does the 4G network provide you the same experience virtually everywhere?"

And that's a question of infrastructure investment - which is of course the biggest challenge.