Wireless ups and downs

It's a mixed bag of news for wireless proponents this week. On the one hand, CA's move into the wireless management market is great news because it provides a new tool for enterprise IT groups looking for a way to bring a wireless platform under full control. On the other hand, St. Louis joins a growing list of cities that haven't been able to make the dream of municipal WiFi a reality. Even with the current mixed news, though, there's a clear sense of anticipation in the wireless market these days. Google is the source of much anticipation, between the rumors of Google phones and the company's clearly stated ambitions in the 700Mhz space. That 700Mhz spectrum slice (which is, in the final analysis, a rather slim slice of RF territory) is the source of at least as much anticipation and speculation as potential customers and service providers alike try to figure out what open access will mean, and just how many services will be made available when the gavel has rapped down at the auction's end.

These times of anticipation can be valuable if they're used for planning and thinking about what new services and products can mean for an organization's IT infrastructure. Once the products and services are in place, blue-sky brainstorming will be seen differently. Now, when products and services are still on the horizon, IT groups have an excuse to think carefully and plan slowly for the future. It would be a shame to let that sort of excuse and opportunity pass by--they come along even less often than new pieces of RF spectrum. -Curtis