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By Jo Best, 3 November 2004 15:33

NEWS Always-on email has started a big enterprise mobility push but is there another killer application on the way for smart phones?

While enterprise wireless data users are set to boom, according to analyst house Gartner, they number just few million at the moment.

According to Gartner research VP Phillip Redman, despite enthusiasm for mobile email CIOs just can’t get their heads around the differences between PC and mobility strategies.

"The two-year [replacement] cycle is often a problem for enterprises," he said. "Enterprises are used to saying, 'We want one device, we want one platform'," because that's how they manage PCs.

Cost is still prohibitive for many companies, according to Redman, and the array of pricing options for wireless messaging - per message, per megabyte, per bundle - is hobbling would-be users.

Nevertheless, as handset costs come down and more devices surface ready to support wireless messaging, data will turn into mobile's next moveable feast.

Gartner predicts that by 2008, North America will rack up 50 million enterprise data users and will spend nearly $9bn on wireless data. While email will make up the bulk of that data spend, other highly business-specific applications are shaping up to be next data drivers.

Mauri Niinenen, director of end-to-end solutions in Nokia's enterprise mobility systems unit, said that for enterprises mobile email and voice are still the killer apps but "what comes after will be horizontal - CRM, salesforce automation. I see that coming relatively soon after mobile email". He added that the pharmaceutical industry in particular is leading the way as an early adopter.

Gartner's Redman, however, doesn't see a killer app, more killer characteristics, driving data usage, including ease of use and customisation.

And with mobile email devices set to drop into the sub-$200 category, CIOs are set to have an easier time proving mobility rollouts can be done cost-effectively, if not being able to prove tangible return on investment as a result of increased productivity.

Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia's executive VP of multimedia, said that one CIO, keen to equip his workforce with mobile email capability at the lowest cost, decided to give his staff each a Nokia gaming deck, the N-Gage.

"I don't know what the efficiency increase will be when these guys start to play games as well," he said.