Sybase iAnywhere is offering to support mobile business customers left in the lurch by Nokia's decision to focus on consumers.
The enterprise mobility specialist has unveiled a Nokia Intellisync Migration Programme, under which such companies can obtain selected tools from its Information Anywhere Suite for free.
Nokia
announced on 30 September that it would cease developing or marketing
its behind-the-firewall offerings for business mobility, and instead
concentrate on consumer mobile messaging services.
Sybase
iAnywhere, however, said that enterprise mobility is its main area of
focus, and that it hopes to gain new business from Nokia customers
seeking continued support.
The company expects that there are
enterprise customers "in the hundreds" who are still using Nokia
Intellisync products, plus a somewhat larger number of smaller firms.
"Our
offer is that for Nokia customers looking for another vendor, we will
offer the equivalent product, or as close as we can get, free of
licensing charges," said Rob Veitch, senior director of business
development at Sybase iAnywhere.
Companies taking up this offer
will have to pay the ongoing costs of support and maintenance, but will
already be paying for this for the Nokia Intellisync products they are
using. "From a finance point of view, it should be a seamless
transition," Veitch said.
How easy this will be for customers
will depend on the technology they are using. Organisations using
Intellisync for mobile access to Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange
Email should have little difficulty making the switch, according to
Veitch, although it may require some installation work from a systems
integrator.
The same applies for device management and security,
according to Veitch. " These tend to be transparent to users, so only
the IT department needs to worry about deployment," he said.
Mobile
applications built on Intellisync's platform, such as salesforce
automation or field service support, could prove more problematic and
would likely involve starting again from the ground up.
"In this
situation, instead of moving the application over, we'll look at
conversations along the line of refreshing the features and
technology," said Veitch, who claimed that enterprise mobility has
moved on since many Intellisync customers deployed their applications.
As
an example, Veitch said that Sybase iAnywhere expects to soon have a
capability it calls the "inbox for the future". This will allow mobile
executives to sign off items needing approval direct from their mobile
inbox, rather than having to open a browser window and follow a web
link.
"There's a great deal of interest in letting users extend the approvals process so it can be embedded in an email," he said.
Source : http://www.itnews.com.au/
