By John Mark V. Tuazon

In the dog-eat-dog world of the competitive enterprise, keeping up to pace with the latest developments in technology becomes vital for survival, especially after a crucial time of economic crisis. For the coming year, experts therefore agree: agility and mobility becomes the core battleground of competition for companies to stay afloat. In the workplace of 2010 as predicted by top network vendors interviewed exclusively by Computerworld Philippines, executives have relevant information at their fingertips, employees utilize the power of the Web in collaborating for their work, and everyone will be connected to their home base whenever and wherever they may be. “There is an increasing movement towards the ‘Connected Life’,” quips Stephen Misa, country manager for Cisco Systems Philippines. Misa sees personal technologies such as smartphones and social networking infiltrating the corporate sphere, simultaneously as the workplace begins to move out of the conventional office building.

A Networking Facelift

Due to the increasing demand for content—especially video, which Misa describes as “the killer application” that will drive the next generation of productivity and innovation—corporate and service provider networks would have to be upgraded. The potentials of Web 2.0, specifically social networking, will ring in more demand for bandwidth, especially as consumers—who are also employees—continue to drive the popularity of such tools. “Companies need to re-evaluate the tools they offer their employees, and service providers need to re-engineer their networks,” Misa notes.

Social networking, however, will remain a marginal portion of the company’s network bandwidth, as bandwidth-hungry video redefines bandwidth requirements and Internet traffic for most firms. “Our Telepresence offering once again grew in excess of 100% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2009, proving that customers truly understand the productivity and value that video delivers both internally and with their own customers and partners.”

With this incessant hunger for richer content delivered through the office, Misa says providers must graduate from merely providing basic voice or data services, and move to become “experience providers” delivering an integrated set of data, voice, video, and mobile services to retain customers.

The Everywhere, Every Time, Everyone Office

However, pushing content to the office—a stable and stationary placeholder of content—is just half the battle for network administrators and providers. As more and more devices offer portability and mobility not only to consumers but to professional users as well, the four walls of the office become irrelevant.

“Corporate users want all information at their fingertips, and to stay connected with the office and clients while still being able to do business in the field,” posits Desmond Toh, marketing director, D-Link.

As corporate users continue to access the Web even outside their offices, Toh says the demand for Internet connectivity on-the-go will ramp up by next year. “Broadband and the network have [actually] become the fourth utility after water, gas, and electricity,” asserts Cisco’s Misa.

More importantly, as new innovations break barriers in terms of access, productivity is heightened due to the liberalizing capabilities of collaboration. “Tools are being developed to enable workers to communicate and collaborate seamlessly with one another, with their partners and with their customers,” Misa explains. Bart Burstein, vice president for product management and business development of Ruckus Wireless, would like to call this innovation as “distributed computing.” “Businesses are becoming more mobile, enabling corporate users, for example, to edit a speech or a press statement on the go, in real time, and in collaboration with other workers,” he shares. For such enablers, Burstein says connectivity requirements are heightened. “High-quality and reliable broadband access is therefore needed to do distributed computing,” he adds.

3G as Enterprise Enabler

3G technology, currently touted as the messiah that will integrate both mobile computing and high-speed access through wireless broadband capabilities, will become increasingly important in the coming years, and may even trigger the growth of more mobile users.
“In terms of access, 3G is increasingly being used by businesses,” claims Mantosh Malhotra, Philippine country manager, Qualcomm, a 3G technology innovator for device manufacturers. “With 3G, information can be fed real-time to the server.”

According to Malhotra, 3G enables companies to drive up its productivity output and ensure that downtime is kept to a minimum. These innovative products, D-Link’s Toh said, will allow users to enjoy broadband experience with full mobility. But aside from the access side, Malhotra notes how more and more targeted devices utilizing 3G technology are slowly becoming mainstream. “With the robust 3G ecosystem, manufacturers are increasingly becoming secure that their investments in 3G are protected, thereby ramping up the production of 3G devices, and driving down its costs, making it more affordable,” he explains.

Ruckus Wireless’ Burstein, on the other hand, sees a similar trend in devices, as more and more gadgets move towards “miniaturization.” “The trend for miniaturization of devices will mean more work will be done on smartphones and netbooks, as these devices become more affordable,” he says, adding that due to this, the percentage of smartphone usage in the enterprise will escalate.

Virtualization to Continue as a Trend

On the other half of the network spectrum, vendors see virtualization going through most of 2010, with a slight entrance of cloud computing as it slowly captures more industries. “Most technologies will be based on Internet delivery and infrastructure,” details Jojo Colina, head of product management and development group, ePLDT. Colina said cloud computing will play the largest part of organizations’ network bandwidth, as utility computing infrastructure sitting on top of their virtualization strategies become commonplace. “Companies who don’t have the infrastructure to deploy applications can look to providers in provisioning the needed software,” he adds.

With an increasing demand for faster access, richer content and a more mobile environment, Cisco’s Misa concludes that virtualization has finally become the hot topic for CIOs. “They are increasingly being challenged to manage more and more computing assets while keeping a cap on complexity and costs,” he explains.

“Virtualization, therefore, will mean better management of IT resources, enabling companies to become more agile and respond more quickly to macro-economic and customer shifts.”

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