UFO Info Week-End

The core objectives driving mobile investment were not to harness connectivity but to provide access

The core objectives driving mobile investment were not to harness connectivity but to provide access to more static functions such as an electronic calendar or PowerPoint presentation on the move. However, they are failing to use the investment to harness the benefit of true mobile working, with most using the technology at a superficial level to store data as they work rather than taking advantage of wireless connectivity.The report’s analysis of those businesses with a live wireless project either underway or complete highlights a lack of synchronisation between mobile technologies. It says that companies in the UK employing between one and 99 employees are predicted to invest £7.3bn in mobile technologies this year, but they are failing to use this investment to harness the full benefits of mobile working.The survey, which claims to be the most extensive undertaken in the UK into business mobility, reveals that small and medium-sized businesses will commit 16 per cent of their total IT spend to wireless projects this year, which is a significantly higher investment than that of corporates as a proportion of total IT spend. But a recent experience taught me that people are often reluctant to lend you their internet connection to send that document upon which your office is so dependent – so worried are people about spam and viruses.Which brings me to a report published earlier this month by the mobile telephone company O2. But you only have to be out in the countryside with a laptop and modem trying to send an e-mail via the conventional means of a telephone line to appreciate it The Government may be committed to a “wired Britain”.

Because of its e-mail function, users can not only keep in touch with the office, but respond to those requests for more data for next week’s presentation, a fuller explanation of last week’s report, etc.Now, this is not meant to be an advertisement for the nifty little machine that plays such a big part in many people’s lives that some have started to refer to it as a “Crackberry”. Until I appreciated the significance of the capital “B”, that is.
Then I smiled at the way in which a gadget which few people had heard of – and fewer had seen – a year ago had suddenly become such a part of everyday life that no explanation was necessary.Certainly, the Blackberry is one of those great technology applications that has immediately found a market. The mobile telephone, once it had outgrown its “yuppie” image, was quickly seen as an invaluable aid by today’s harassed professionals because it enabled its users to stay in touch with the office when away But the Blackberry provides so much more. This was, of course, a reference to a traditional English late-summer activity, I thought. But the City will still have questions it will want answered.

An upbeat forecast for US trading in the coming months will be welcome, as will an update on Guinness, which continues to suffer declining sales in Ireland and the UK. Earlier this month, Signet revealed that second- quarter sales were up 6 per cent.On Wednesday, the transatlantic jewellery group is expected to unveil a 10 per cent rise in first-half profits before tax to £52.7m, benefiting from robust diamond sales in the US. The latter’s trading statement will comment on all areas of the business, from its Marriott and Travel Inn hotels to Brewers Fayre diners and David Lloyd Leisure health clubs. But it will be news on budget hotel Premier Lodge, acquired last month, that will be off most interest.Fortunes have been flat at JD Wetherspoon, which last month warned that annual pre-tax profits would not meet forecasts because of slower sales growth, despite the traditional boost of a football tournament. Thanks to the wonders of new technology, a new word – or rather a new application of an old one – has crept into the language The other day, I read of somebody “Blackberrying”. According to David Wilkinson at Ernst & Young, the hard slog of setting up a new business generally lasts for two to three years, after which those dreams of an improved quality of life actually become more achievable.”Assuming the business succeeds, being self-employed can be a lot more fulfilling,” he says.