From ‘Hanging Up’ column, issue 40 – April/May 2009

Heard the one about the chap who went skiing, downloaded a few TV programmes to entertain his son in the evening, and got hit with a bill for nearly £22,000 on his return?

Unfortunately for the father, this was no joke. He had assumed his £25 Vodafone data card would cover the cost, but it merely gave him access to mobile broadband abroad. The downloads were charged at a rate equating to £300 per minute. Yes, that’s right: per minute!

Since the advent of what is now being called “mobile broadband” (you might think of it as a wireless dongle), it has never been so easy to stay in touch via a wireless network wherever you happen to be. And sure enough, both consumers and businesses are embracing the opportunity to do so in droves

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From ‘Opinion’ column, issue 40 – April/May 2009

In today’s economic climate, telematics and tracking systems ought to be an easy sell. If you’re a vehicle operator, the fact is that you really can save money by introducing telematics – and the savings will probably come within less than a year.

This isn’t just a pious hope: fleet operators seem to be practically lining up to tell you about the benefits. Elsewhere on this issue we describe several such companies. One covered on this page says it is saving £300,000 a year with a telematics-based system – much of it just through improved fuel consumption.

Add in other benefits such as reduced insurance premiums, reduced maintenance bills and shorter journey times, and the savings just keep mounting up.

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From ‘Hanging Up’ column, issue 39 – Feb-Mar 2009

Most new mobile technology and applications are targeted squarely at the consumer market. It’s not hard to see why: a potential market of millions of users is more attractive to technology and application developers than the much smaller business-to-business community.

Nevertheless, developments in the consumer market often do eventually have their impact on the business world. Those same consumers are often mobile workers too, and their personal experience raises expectations when it comes to the way mobile technology affects their working life.

Businesses have long recognised that user acceptance is a key factor in the success of any mobile deployment, and the more users become accustomed to slick applications on their mobile phones in their private life, the more they come to expect similar seamless ways of doing things at work.

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From ‘Opinion’ column, issue 39 – Feb-Mar 2009

It’s that time of year. Spring flowers are appearing in the garden. The birds are wearing their courting plumage. Is this breath of spring in the air responsible for the more optimistic attitude about the economy that seems to be emerging? And does it have solid foundations or, like the daffodils, will it have died down by mid-summer?

While it may be too early to detect any green shoots in the economy, there is no doubting the general mood. Businesses are beginning to recover, at least from the initial shock at the scale and rapidity of the economic downturn, if not from its impact. Now the focus has shifted to steering a safe course through the recession.

Some sectors are still in dire straits, of course – not least the automotive market, on which the health of the global economy seems almost over-reliant. And the global banking crisis has made the banks very nervous about lending even to companies in good financial health and virtually full order books. Still, at least some of the flurry of Government initiatives to unblock the money supply chain should start to bear fruit over the next few months.

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From ‘Opinion’ column, issue 38 – Dec 2008

So abrupt has been the economic downturn in the past few months that few businesses are confident about forecasts for 2009. And in an uncertain world, every business is looking to cut costs. The very nature of mobilised working, however, means that some costs are bound to rise.

Take the Chancellor’s recent 2p/litre hike in fuel duty, due to be followed by another 1.84/lite rise next April. Anyone with a mobile workforce will be paying more for fuel.

The credit crunch will also ensure tough year. With no liquidity in the economy, everyone struggles. Consumers cut back, stock sits on the shelves longer, orders are delayed. Fewer orders mean fewer deliveries. In the mobile service sector, businesses will be aiming to cut service and repair costs – and that will have a knock-on effect on the productivity of mobile service engineers.

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From ‘Hanging Up’ column, issue 38 – Dec 2008

Have you changed your mobile phone or satnav system recently? I changed my mobile phone last month, and I’ve been stunned to discover just how much time it has taken me to familiarise myself with exactly how the replacement works.

I switched because I wanted the push-email capability that the BlackBerry offers and my last phone didn’t. What I hadn’t bargained for was the learning curve on the other phone functions, many of which are different because I’ve moved from Symbian OS on my old Samsung phone to RIM OS. Some new features are an improvement, some are just different, and some are downright irritating.

The fact is that you become familiar with a certain user interface, and as I’ve found, menu icons and the drop-down menu content can vary subtly or significantly between models, depending on whether the device has a Symbian, Palm or Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system. Even if you replace your phone with more or less the same model, you’ll find subtle changes in the way the new one operates.

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From ‘Opinion’ column, issue 37 – November 2008

With the UK economy now firmly in recession, there is a sense of nervousness in the business community. It’s not just a question of how healthy your own business is, but also one of how well equipped your customers and suppliers are to survive the economic downturn.

In the tracking and telematics market, there has been a gathering trend towards leasing assets and services rather than owning them. However, while it might make the balance sheet look better, it also creates a certain vulnerability to external circumstances.

Tracking companies whose business model is based on volume-selling of telematics “black boxes” on a pence-per-day-per-vehicle basis, and not on building long-term relationships with customers, are particularly at risk. Despite its maturity, the tracking market remains volatile – and that’s the very characteristic the banks are currently keen to avoid at all costs. So some of those suppliers could have a hard time of it.

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