According to META Group, lifestyle and pervasive computing will likely drive emerging technologies in 2003, leading to an increase in business demand for mobile computing options. By 2005, META Group predicts 95% of new corporate notebooks will have built-in wireless capabilities. Centrino, Intel's newest platform made for a complete mobile environment, makes its debut today. It promises a longer battery life and built-in support for 802.11 wireless networking.
"Most corporate laptops will move toward the Centrino platform during the next year," said Steve Kleynhans, vice president and end-user platform specialist, Infrastructure Strategies at META Group. "In addition, teleworking and other forms of mobile computing will become increasingly common and will segue into business advances over the next five years, affecting PDAs, phones, lifestyle devices, ADSL and wireless networks, and other business applications - everything from mail and calendar synchronization to links in back-end business systems. These trends will have a large impact on an organization's security because mobility poses unique concerns and challenges."
With 95% of corporate notebooks shipping with embedded Wi-Fi by 2005, enterprises must aggressively plan for the introduction of wireless into the corporate network. IT managers must establish comprehensive policies and processes to mitigate security risks, increased infrastructure complexity, and cost. Establishing best practices to create an end-user-friendly environment will be essential to maintaining the benefits of this increased mobility.
"We estimate only one-third of large enterprises have a comprehensive policy, clearly documenting the approach to wireless adoption," said Chris Kozup, senior research analyst, Infrastructure Strategies at META Group. "The Intel Centrino announcement highlights the criticality of protecting corporate resources against the high security risks associated with broad-scale introduction of Wi-Fi into the enterprise."
Posted to the site on 17th March 2003
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/8488.php