3G Alliance Formed

Lucent Technologies has joined with Atos KPMG Consulting (AKC), Boston University, BP, Hewlett Packard (HP), INSEAD, London Business School and Sun Microsystems to form the 3G enterprise Alliance, a broad-based group focused on promoting the benefits that third-generation (3G) Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) can offer to enterprise end-users.

The 3GeA members are among the key influencers in the enterprise market and will bring together their experience and expertise to highlight the business impact and benefits of 3G mobile networks. At the same time, the 3GeA will demonstrate to mobile operators the tangible benefits of accelerating the development of their UMTS networks to provide secure high-speed data applications to their business customers.

At a Forum held in October to discuss the benefits of integrating 3G services into the enterprise and corporate markets, members of the alliance agreed on key business benefits of mobile high speed data access including: increased productivity for the workforce; reduced operational expenditure; more effective management of the mobile workforce; and increased customer satisfaction. The participants also agreed that mobile technology will have a profound impact on future business models and will fundamentally change the way many companies work.

Martin Heath, Managing Director, Communications & Content, Atos KPMG Consulting said, "Mobilising the intranet offers organisations of all sizes measurable cost savings and efficiency improvements. Early experience suggests that cash-flow benefits pay for technology investments within one year to 18 months. Mobile enterprise solutions are becoming a must have for many businesses".

David Levine, Global Solution Principal for Enterprise Mobility for HP urged enterprises to start preparing for 3G now. "I don't worry whether or not 3G will take off or not; I know it will. The question is will it happen now or in three years time? Enterprises cannot wait until the long-promised extra bandwidth arrives; they must put into place plans and resources to understand their business needs and how they might benefit from 3G. Only those businesses who are ready for the arrival of 3G will reap those first rewards of decreased cost and increased employee efficiency."

Enterprise representatives to the forum also demonstrated their commitment to, and demand for high-speed data applications, and expressed support for the rapid introduction of 3G for business use.

One of the corporates interested in working with 3G is Morgan Stanley. Ralph Davies, an Executive Director in IT at Morgan Stanley said, "It's common for bankers at Morgan Stanley to be away from the office 3-4 days a week. Despite this, they need the latest market information to be able to react to opportunities on the road. Mobile high speed data offers a strong value proposition to a company such as Morgan Stanley which can gain a competitive edge from having staff equipped with vital and up-to-date information as they arrive at a meeting."

"Mobile and Wireless technology is an enabler of potentially significant process change for BP, " said Mike Bean, CTO office BP. "Secure mobile data access will enable us to support our mobile workers, connect with our customers and make use of "downtime" to make our processes more efficient. "

"We are convinced that mobile business solutions will make all who use them more competitive in today's challenging environment through cost reduction, productivity gains and the creation of new business opportunities," said Jeff Heenan-Jalil, Director Enterprise Management, Mobility Europe and Asia-Pacific, Lucent Technologies. The distinguishing feature of this Alliance is its focus on how enterprises can leverage their existing applications to make them successful on the road."

The members of the 3GeA will compound the experience and knowledge of the alliance by mutually sharing research, industry experiences and primary research relating to mobile high-speed data. An academic advisory board comprising experts from Boston University, London Business School and INSEAD has been established to support research and business modelling requirements of the 3GeA. Jim Ciriello, a Research Director at Boston University School of Management and coordinator of the Academic Advisory Board explained: "The dialogue between the enterprise and the mobile network operator is fundamentally broken. There is no systematic process for requirements definition or relationship management. With 3GeA, we intend to develop a demand side point of view that will start the exchange."

The Alliance members will continue to explore and relate up-to-date theory and methods for value creation from 3G deployments through a series of awareness raising events in key European markets over the coming months.

About the 3GeA
The 3G Enterprise Alliance (3GeA) is an industry association that has as its charter the identification, development and promotion of the tangible benefits to business and industry of enabling secure mobile data services over 3G networks.

3GeA is founded on the principle that secure, robust, mobile data services can be made available today, with the potential to transform the way business is transacted and services are provided and create new value for broad sectors of the economy. 3GeA will demonstrate that demand exists for such services and that valuable and viable business cases exist for "going mobile" across multiple business sectors.