BT Cellnet teams with IBM to drive the
market for corporate wireless Internet access

 

With more than 7 million cell phone customers and over 600,000 subscribers to its Genie Internet service, BT Cellnet is the UK's fastest growing mobile Internet company. Anxious to maintain its leadership of a market characterised by rapid change and fierce competition, the corporation has recently announced a strategic alliance with IBM. The new agreement is certain to accelerate the adoption of wireless Internet solutions in the corporate market place.

 

IBM and BT Cellnet share the view that it shouldn't matter who you're communicating with - staff, customers, suppliers or partners - or where they are. Data should be available to the individual whenever and wherever it is needed. They are determined, by leveraging each others' strengths, to deliver the bold innovations that will finally bring the power of the 'net to the palms of our hands

 

BT Cellnet is no stranger to leading through innovation. It launched Genie, for example, as the UK's first Mobile ISP. This was quickly followed by the introduction of the country's first ever commercial Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) service. And now the company is set to be the first to offer GPRS mobile data services in the Summer of 2000. GPRS is an abbreviation for General Packet Radio Services; an efficient, high speed mobile data service that can deliver information up to 10 times faster than conventional cell phone technology.

 

Cutting edge technology
Innovative as is clearly is, it's not hard to see why BT Cellnet chose to work with IBM. As the world's leading e-business company, IBM has an impressive history of helping enterprises the world over exploit the communications revolution, and an enviable range of services, solutions leading edge technologies.

 

Its strength in the e-business sector can be seen with IBM WebSphere Everyplace Suite: a fast, secure and scalable way of extending data resources to PDA's and other Internet-capable appliances. IBM WebSphere Everyplace Suite contains all the 'software ingredients' that businesses, application developers and Web integrators need to develop new offerings. It can automatically translate data into a format that can be used by mobile, non-PC devices such as WAP phones. It also provides facilities for the tracking and management of large populations of devices, and, importantly, it has robust synchronisation capabilities.

 

BT Cellnet's Managing Director, Peter Erskine, sees great potential in the new alliance. “By partnering with IBM, BT Cellnet will deliver WAP and other mobile Internet solutions to our corporate customers,” he said. “With analysts expecting that more than 80 percent of new Web and enterprise applications will be developed for mobile information devices, we are in a perfect position to capture a growth market. IBM’s leadership in the development of cutting-edge wireless technologies and services makes this a perfect alliance for BT Cellnet to extend its range of corporate mobile Internet services.”

 

The new world market
Developments in database, communications and Internet technology have created a new commercial reality for businesses of all sizes. Companies prepared to invest in technology have been able to re-engineer their business processes to create leaner, more agile enterprises. Today, no-one can claim to 'own' a market sector and nothing can be taken for granted. The opportunities for forward-thinking technologically literate businesses are huge.

 

“The enterprise mobile Internet arena is all about speed to market,” said Val Rahmani, Vice President Communications Sector, IBM Europe. “Companies are now in a great position to enhance competitive edge by providing mobile staff with anytime, anywhere access to back office services and applications. Our co-operation with BT Cellnet will deliver an end-to-end package that will allow BT Cellnet customers to quickly integrate wireless technologies into existing infrastructures and get these new mobile applications deployed fast.”

 

By working together, IBM and BT Cellnet are answering the need for companies to work faster and smarter: empowering employees and others by giving them access to a wealth of corporate data regardless of their physical location. The corporate HQ may still the repository of information, but you no longer have to be within its confines to use it. The mobile workforce has truly come of age.