IBM Builds Momentum for Open Standards-Based Wireless Infrastructure

Business Wire, Feb 17, 2003

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

CANNES, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 17, 2003

Announces support for open enterprise architecture and

solutions to help companies deploy new services across

different networks and devices

IBM today announced new solutions to help customers more efficiently deploy and support wireless services across a range of networks and devices.

The announcement continues IBM's push to establish an open standards-based infrastructure designed to reduce wireless implementation costs, speed the deployment of new services and accelerate revenue generation for enterprises and service providers.

Recognizing that most companies today are faced with a complex environment of multiple data sources, residing in multiple systems, that need to be accessible across multiple networks and devices, IBM is extending its software and services portfolio by supporting the establishment of an open and advanced enterprise reference architecture supported by customer integration labs. The reference architecture and associated solutions will help businesses dynamically extend information to disparate devices, reducing the time and costs associated with deploying new wireless applications, and extending the benefits of e-business on demand to mobile users.

"Historically, standardization has been the key driver for growth in nearly every industry on the brink of mass adoption," said Rod Adkins, general manager of IBM's pervasive computing division. "The wireless industry is following a similar evolution. Our announcements today are designed to address this evolution by providing customers with the ability to choose between a wide range of technology providers and freeing them from reliance on any single company."

Continuing the company's focus on enterprise mobility, the new IBM Wireless Enterprise Delivery Environment creates a framework for the interconnection of wireless networks and enterprise systems and details the horizontal infrastructure required to provide a common development and deployment platform that helps companies to cost-effectively and rapidly support new applications -- such as mobile sales and field force automation, e-mail access, asset monitoring, supply chain management and mobile commerce -- as well as new devices and networks. IBM plans to support the platform with the establishment of two Wireless Enterprise Labs, one in Raleigh, North Carolina, and one in LaGaude, France, that will implement the Wireless Enterprise Delivery Environment using IBM and its business partners' software and hardware components. The labs will be open to IBM business partners as a testbed to integrate components into wireless solutions based on the Wireless Enterprise Delivery Environment. Created specifically for the enterprise market, the Wireless Enterprise Delivery Environment is linked tightly with IBM's successful Service Provider Delivery Environment (SPDE)(TM), an open standards-based framework designed to give mobile and fixed network operators the flexibility to introduce new revenue generating services to their customers faster, easier and at lower cost.

In addition, new wireless solutions announced today that add to IBM's pervasive computing portfolio include:

Utilizing IBM's Wireless Enterprise Delivery Environment and WebSphere infrastructure software and the range of Nokia's business terminal platforms, IBM and Nokia will demonstrate standards-based solutions designed to give companies an effective way to mobilize their business processes and enable a wide array of reliable, scalable and secure wireless enterprise solutions, such as access to e-mail and calendar synchronization. The solutions will be demonstrated at the 3GSM World Congress this week. The companies also announced that they intend to develop and implement joint solutions across a range of Nokia business terminals, including the Nokia 6800, as well as Symbian-based devices like the Nokia 9210i Communicator and the Nokia 7650. IBM also announced that it intends to develop and deploy its WebSphere Everyplace Access client for the Symbian platform.

An agreement with Sony Ericsson to provide secure end-to-end solutions using advanced mobile handsets. The collaboration is designed to accelerate business usage of advanced mobile handsets bringing secure, reliable and scalable solutions to customers wishing to exploit the benefits of corporate mobility and increase productivity in mobile work environments, such as field and sales force applications.

An end-to-end middleware solution with Wavecom that offers enterprise users and network operators a simple, rapid and more efficient connection between different machines across the I/T ecosystem. The new standards-based solution embeds IBM's MQIsdp messaging protocol directly onto the Wavecom Wireless Module helping data coming from handsets and other devices to be transformed to match the data requirements of other enterprise mobile applications. These wireless modules can then be integrated into a wide range of devices, whether vending machines, electricity meters or industrial appliances. Customers can realize a greater return on their IT investment from a solution that is designed to enable machines to rapidly network with applications at the application level without requiring extensive reprogramming or systems administration.