.KEYWORD levinson
.FLYINGHEAD THE PALMPOWER INTERVIEW
.TITLE PalmPower interview: inside Palm’s own mobile infrastructure
.FEATURE
.SPOTLIGHT FIGALT cover.gif
.SUMMARY In the August 15 issue of CIO magazine, Palm received the prestigious CIO-100 Award for Innovative Business Practices and Services. Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz had the opportunity to sit down with Marina Levinson, Palm’s Vice President and CIO (Chief Information Officer), to learn the inside scoop about Palm’s own mobile infrastructure.
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
In the August 15 issue of CIO magazine, Palm received the prestigious CIO-100 Award for Innovative Business Practices and Services. Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz had the opportunity to sit down with Marina Levinson, pictured in Figure A, Palm’s Vice President and CIO (Chief Information Officer), to learn the inside scoop about Palm’s own mobile infrastructure.
.FIGPAIR A Palm’s Marina Levinson
.Q DG
Please tell us about the role of the CIO (Chief Information Officer) at Palm and your areas of responsibility?
.A ML
I’m responsible for all global uses of information technology for Palm. That includes the infrastructure support as well as all key enterprise applications as well as innovative use of Palm mobile and wireless technology.
.A DG
At Palm itself or at your customers?
.A ML
Right now it’s within Palm. But I think through this project, which we initially called Palm\@Palm, it was a great opportunity for us to actually provide leadership to other enterprise customers in the areas of mobile and wireless computing and this is what’s actually been recognized by CIO Magazine. As you all know we became a winner of their CIO-100 award.
.Q DG
You said you were initially calling it Palm\@Palm. Does this project now have a new name?
.A ML
Yes, we actually renamed it Palm\@Enterprise. This is a reflection that this is not just an internal use of Palm technology. We created something that can be easily reproduced by other enterprise customers and as a result of that, we think that a better name for this particular initiative is Palm\@Enterprise.
.Q DG
So let’s dive into the cool stuff. Tell us how you’re using Palm handhelds in your enterprise.
.A ML
It actually started here early on, when I first came onboard as CIO in November 1999. At the time, Palm was very much perceived in the marketplace as truly a consumer product and one of the reasons I actually joined Palm was because I felt that there was a tremendous opportunity to use these technology products as business tools to improve productivity and really prove that this is not "gizmos and gadgets" anymore. They can be very relevant in the enterprise space.
.Q DG
Oh, my lord, yes. The stories we’ve been writing about this stuff! Every time we talk to a customer or user of Palm computers, we discover how these things are being used in more and more amazing ways.
.A ML
We started in small way, we started with a clean sheet of paper and we started envisioning about how these technologies can be used to benefit the enterprise. As a result of that, we came up with a pretty unique approach which really marries the personal side of using the Palm device, the elegance, the personalization, the ease of use, with an enterprise industrial-strength solution providing end-to-end security that enterprises require–providing access to enterprise business applications, providing access to corporate email and also being able to use those devices to access any site on the Internet or an intranet.
.Q DG
Is that capability available mostly in the California area or is that all wirelessly available everywhere?
.A ML
Because of the technology limitations, we have different approaches to deployment. I want to make it very clear that this is very much of a global project. However, we use different approaches to deployment depending on the geography.
For example, in the US, the pilot for Palm\@Palm was so successful that the company made a decision to give every employee in the West a Palm VII so we can enable all employees with this wireless functionality. So our strategy in the US is to use Palm VII devices for wireless connectivity.
Obviously, it’s not available right now either in Europe or Asia. Our strategy is to deliver similar functionality by using our product called Mobile Internet Kit in conjunction with the phone. We’re really providing a two-piece solution for wireless connectivity outside the United States. Our strategy is once we develop a product similar to Palm VII that’s available outside of the United States, we will replace this two piece solution with one integrated device.
.Q DG
What systems and solutions are you at Palm using to make all this possible?
.A ML
We’re partnered with ThinAir for the wireless email, for example. We’re very much partnered with SAP to provide access to our ERP system as part of this mobile portal. From the integration services perspective, we’ll work with PriceWaterhouseCoopers to put the whole mobile portal strategy together.
So, basically you look at what we delivered as part of this Palm\@Enterprise program. We delivered, first of all, the architectured infrastructure to enable mobile and wireless connectivity and then we provided mobile access enablement.
We allow our employees to wirelessly access their corporate email and group calendaring. We are providing them with company directory and campus resource locators so if they don’t know where a conference room is they just need to pull out their Palm computer and bing! In 30 seconds they know exactly where to go. So that’s the mobile office enablement track.
Then we delivered integration with our enterprise applications. As I mentioned, we’re integrating with SAP already. In the pilot format we have integration with our data warehouse and we’re planning to deploy that in production within the next 60 days. Last, but not least, we created this handheld mobile portal that allows very seamless access to all this information which, again, is a very simple way to aggregate multiple sources of information and present it to our users in a way that they are familiar with and feel comfortable with.
.Q DG
How does this relate to use of either laptops or desktops? Is this mostly an away-from-desk solution? Are there different stages or scaling factors involved?
.A ML
This is actually a very interesting question because for some people, it’s replaced laptops. So, for example, if you talk about me specifically, I tend to work a lot after-hours and on weekends because now I have wireless connectivity at corporate email. This is something that I check on a very regular basis.
I don’t take my laptop home anymore because I have instant access to whatever’s happening in the company by using my Palm VII. So, from that perspective it didn’t necessarily replace laptop completely. It certainly allows me not to be tethered to my desk during after hours as well as on weekends. It gives me more freedom of choice in terms of where and when I want to access my email.
.Q DG
That’s great. Are you guys using IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol)?
.A ML
Yes.
.Q DG
IMAP makes a lot more sense because all the messages live on the server, rather than having to be stored on the handheld device.
.A ML
Let me just add one more thing. We talked in the beginning about the need to balance personal and enterprise goals and this becoming a key success factor for enterprise mobile solutions. One thing that we provided upfront to our internal customers in terms of this mobile portal is the ability for each of them to create their own personal channel.
So any URL, any site on the Web can be very easily transcribed into a personal channel and by doing that, we’re really trying to marry personal needs of our employees with enterprise content and what we want them to know from the enterprise perspective.
.Q DG
Makes a lot of sense. We’ve developed channels that are specifically handheld-oriented for both PalmPower and the Enterprise Edition just for that sort of use. How has all this technology benefited Palm?
.A ML
I know that a lot of employees really appreciate this instant access to corporate information as well as personal information. For me, as an IT professional, this is one of very few projects I ever worked on where users actually accept it without resistance. Everyone loves to reach out to his or her Palm, so to speak.
They’re just fascinated by how much more you can do with those Palm computers. You know, really, I believe by creating this mobile portal and by combining this personal and enterprise information, we’re on the cutting edge of what other companies will be doing within the next six to 12 months.
.Q DG
That’s great. Do you think that because people now have access to this information, for example nights and weekends that they’re going to be winding up doing more work or does it save them from just having to make a trip to the office?
.A ML
I think it’s a combination of both. Really, what we’re saying is that we’re not necessarily asking people to work harder or work more, we’re giving them much more freedom and much more flexibility to decide when they’re going to do this work.
Let me give you an example. Think about your day and think about how much idle time you have during the day. You get stuck at boring meetings and you get stuck at the airport (though probably not in the near future). You get stuck in doctor’s offices and you’re waiting. What you usually do is either read some trash magazines or you’re basically stuck.
.CALLOUT We’re giving them more time to be with their families when they come home from work.
But this Palm device now allows you to actually utilize this idle time and receive your corporate email and answer those messages on the fly. So when you actually get to the office or when you actually get home you’re done with your work.
I truly believe that by using this idle time, we dramatically improve people’s productivity and, as a result of that, we’re giving them more time for fun and play and they can be with their families when they come home from work.
.Q DG
That’s something everyone can appreciate.
.A ML
Another interesting example is an observation regarding the effectiveness of our internal communication. Before we had this wireless access to the Internet, people were so busy they tended not to read announcements, they missed email messages and then they were surprised when we introduced a new service. With this wireless access to the information, because of this better idle time utilization, people started reading more about what’s happening in the company because it’s available to them now wirelessly and it’s truly in the "palm of their hands" right now. We noticed that people are actually more aware of what’s happening in the company than prior to the implementation of this mobile portal.
.Q DG
That does sound very interesting. Can you tell us more about the CIO-100 award?
.A ML
This year’s CIO-100 award was really focused on innovation. They tried to recognize 100 companies for innovation and delivering either services or systems. Our specific award was focused on our innovative use of mobile and wireless technology because we’re the first company that’s really developed and used mobile and wireless devices in this way. We certainly were incredibly honored to receive this award. We’ve been in great company, actually. We received this award alongside such innovators as Charles Schwab, FedEx, and IBM and I certainly was very proud to be there among those very formidable companies that are known for their innovation.
.Q DG
Although all this is really exciting, what are the real benefits? What is the real ROI (Return on Investment) that other companies will get as a result of implementing solutions similar to yours?
.A ML
Though this solution is very new–we started implementation in December 2000 and we’ve been rolling out additional components and additional functionality since then–we were able to do a case study regarding the benefits of wireless email at Palm.
This is just a small component of our program, but as a result of the study, we determined that we gained (these are very conservative estimates) between six and ten percent productivity per user. I think this is, again, a very interesting story and if you look at the productivity gains and you calculate the savings, the cost of the solution really pales in comparison with the benefits you can gain.
But then, of course, the strength of the solution is that wireless email is just one of the components. The architectural framework that we put in place here allows us to very easily add components on top of what we’ve already delivered. So if you look at email as just being one component, in addition to that we delivered access to our enterprise applications and access to our decision support tools, when you take this initial six to ten percent, this is just a beginning.
We will be monitoring very closely this specific area of ROI and considering that now people are very focused on cost controls and cost savings, they want to do things that add to the bottom line. We want to continue doing studies and documenting tangible benefits of our solution and that will be a topic of some white papers that we’ll put together with our partners and enterprise marketing.
.Q DG
Taking out your crystal ball, what’s your vision of mobile technology in the enterprise in the next five or ten years?
.A ML
If I look at five to ten years down the road I think it’s difficult to predict what kind of new technologies will be delivered, but I really think about this in two ways. One is the technology piece, which is improved coverage from the wireless perspective. Much faster speeds, you know 2 1/2 G, 3G, 4G (G, of course, meaning Generation) becoming a reality. That really allows you much more reliable access to all kinds of information, all kinds of data really opens the way for you not just to transfer text and bytes and little pictures but really you can get into streaming videos and other more high-band requirements for applications.
I think wireless and mobile technology will become a pervasive technology that enterprises will use. If you look at some of the trends, it took us 20 years to transition from mainframe to client/server. And it took us about ten years for client/server to become mainstream. Then we got into this e-business world and it was much faster again than during the client/server period. I believe that for wireless and mobile, this transition will be even faster.
Again, my answer is twofold. One, better technology will actually accelerate the adoption rate for the enterprises and this wireless mobile technology will become pervasive. It will be like cell phones. You don’t even think about them anymore, everyone has them. I think the same thing will happen with PDAs and wireless applications. It will be everywhere. It won’t be an exception. It will be pervasive and embedded in everything we’ll do from the enterprise applications and infrastructure perspective.
.Q DG
This is also an opportunity to be talking to literally hundreds of thousands of Palm users as well as thousands of Notes and Domino users and decision makers. Is there any special message you’d like to leave these folks with as we end our interview?
.A ML
I don’t necessarily think we’ll limit this message to users of Lotus Notes and Microsoft exchange because, again, the wireless email component of our program is a very important component but it’s just one component.
.BEGIN_KEEP
So, really the message to enterprises is that wireless and mobile is very important, but not everything needs to be wireless. Not everything needs to be mobile. We need to really have a much more robust, much more practical approach to mobilization and really figure out what makes sense from the mobile and wireless perspective, and then use technology to mobilize the enterprise.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
Complete coverage of the 2001 CIO-100 Awards is featured in the August 15 issue of CIO magazine and at http://www.cio.com.
For Palm’s press release on the CIO-100 award, visit http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl?ACCT=153400&TICK=PALM&STORY=/www/story/08-16-2001/0001556193&EDATE=Aug+16,+2001.
To learn more about Thin Air products, visit http://www.thinairapps.com.
To learn more about SAP, visit http://www.sap.com.
To learn more about PriceWaterhouseCoopers, visit http://www.pricewaterhouse.com.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Easy, flexible article reprints
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.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6f94c
.END_KEEP
