Nov/Dec 2004

Evidence of the inexorable expansion of the mobile data market is provided by the progress of one of the leading suppliers, LAN 2 LAN, which reports growth of 30 per cent in this sector in the last quarter alone.

The company has emerged from the fixed-line networking market, and only branched into mobile data at the beginning of this year, but says a fifth of its workforce is now dedicated to this sector, which it says will yield revenues of over £1 million in the first year.

The company says it recognised that there would be strong competition in the sector, and that it needed to offer "corporate applications other than just email and personal information management."

It has therefore aimed to offer added-value service through strategic partnerships with companies such as Flowfinity, SonicMobility, Idokorro and Research in Motion (RIM).

 

It now claims to be recognised as the premier mobile application specialist for RIM and leading mobile network operators O2 and Vodafone. Customers include Group 4, Securicor Security, Rank Hovis, Birmingham NHS Trust and EDF Energy.

The company takes assurance from predictions by Forrester Research that within a year 70 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises and 50 per cent of larger organisations will have deployed mobile applications.