Nokia One Business Server - A Breakthrough Advance for IT Management of a Mobile Enterprise

One of the primary challenges, already being encountered by “Early Adopters,” involves mobilizing content. The wealth of corporate content that now exists was created for the “big screen”—the large monitors on desktop and laptop PCs. Anyone who has ever attempted to access email or navigate an intranet with a personal digital assistant or mobile display phone appreciates the problem first-hand.

Most IT organizations historically have had two options for mobilizing content: the first is synchronization and the second is conversion.

Synchronization of personal information manager (PIM) data with a PC now comes standard with most mobile devices. But additional viewers or “pocket” version applications are normally required, and each of these increases the burden on the user—and on the Help Desk. And many of these do only a marginal job of rendering rich content on small screens. In addition, synching can create a security risk by allowing workers to store corporate information on a portable device that might be lost or stolen. So while synchronization may have a necessary role to play, it is far from being a sufficient solution for enterprise-wide mobility.

The second traditional mobilization option for IT administration involves converting existing content to a new markup language designed for the small screen. But the effort can be quite complicated—and enormously costly! There is no convergence yet on a single language (the Wireless Markup Language, the Handheld Device Markup Language, Compact HTML, XML/XSL eXtensible Markup/Stylesheet Languages and others), and device-specific differences continue to complicate the creation of or conversion to common content. This option may make sense for certain vertical applications where a de facto standard may exist, but with the variety of content across the typical enterprise, the approach is just not feasible.

Fortunately, IT departments now have a third option: the proxy gateway. Nokia One Business Server is just such a system. Nokia One is a comprehensive and cost-effective way to extend the benefits of mobility on a large scale, potentially enterprise-wide. Purchased either as a hardened Nokia EM6600 platform pre-installed with the Nokia One software or as a software-only application for Red Hat Enterprise Linux for deployment on the customer’s own hardware, Nokia One Business Server dynamically and transparently transforms existing content—emails and attachments, PIM data and Web/intranet pages—for better viewing and navigating on virtually any small-screen device. The solution deploys seamlessly, operates securely, is easy to manage, and requires no special readers or other software on the mobile devices. Designed to satisfy the needs of workers throughout the world, Nokia One can be localized in 14 major languages. Together these capabilities allow IT departments to deliver a superior user experience while maintaining full control over the mobile application environment. With Nokia One, the productivity gains and other benefits of mobility can be achieved today securely and cost-effectively enterprise-wide.