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Work Anywhere

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DQI Bureau
New Update

Imagine an office with no cubicles. Just tables with network

nodes. Employees without any fixed working place. They come in, log on to the

network, finish work and move on. Alternatively they just work from the comforts

of their homes. Perhaps difficult for Adam Scott, creator of the popular comic

character, Dilbert, to imagine such a scenario (because Dilbert’s world is

confined to a cubicle). Also, hooking on to the Internet would be via the mobile

phone at a data transfer rate of 386Kbps (10 — 15 times faster than what

Indian Internet users get on their home PCs through dial-up modems). This speed

could increase up to 2Mbps as and when Indian cell operators offer full-blown

‘third generation’ (3G) services to their customers. Colleagues in the same

‘office’ would communicate via e-mails, with chances that they don’t even

meet each other.

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Sounds futuristic, a scene straight out of a sci-fi Hollywood

movie–at least for India. Well, but it can be a reality, much earlier than one

thinks. Work environments mentioned above are already commonplace in Sweden and

Finland. NTT Docomo, the biggest cellular service provider in Japan and the

third largest in the world, intends to offer its 3G services by April 2001,

offering its subscribers 386Kbps data transfer rates.

The question from the Indian perspective–when can it become

a reality here? The answer depends on India’s ability to manage its bandwidth

problems. Currently, local and international bandwidths are a big problem area.

Lack of a good local Internet backbone has compounded the international

bandwidth problem further. Most of the corporate servers are based outside

India, so an e-mail sent from Delhi to Mumbai is routed through the US server

(this requires international bandwidth) before being routed back to the mailbox

in India. The lack of local infrastructure and bandwidth has impeded the growth

of corporate interest in intranets and virtual private networks.

However, all this could change if India is able to get 10Gbps

by 2000 and meet future bandwidth targets. At the same time, it will also need

to ramp up its local Internet infrastructure by setting up the national Internet

backbone and inter-connecting it to strong regional networks being set up by

private players like Reliance, Hughes and Bharti. It could bring in a paradigm

shift (still seems sci-fi) in the work pattern of corporate employees. Agrees

Pran Mehra, CEO, Band-X, India, "Definitely it will allow them to

benefit tremendously on aspects like data exchange and access, virtual private

networks (VPNs), voice over IP, interactive chats and other issues."

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The impact

The biggest impact of an expanded bandwidth will be on

corporate deployments of ‘anywhere, anytime’ applications like VPNs and

intranet access over the Internet. All the data will be stored on servers, which

employees could access at any time, from any place across the country. Such

applications are already in place in a few corporates. For instance, there is a

lot of mobile computing in multinationals like Citrix. On an average, 40% of the

staff is travelling and accessing the corporate network through dial-up from

hotel rooms.

However, with bandwidth and remote connectivity not issues

any more, deployment of applications could become a mass movement. Says Sanjay

Nayak, CEO, Tejas Networks, "Moving from a situation of ‘bandwidth

scarcity’ to ‘bandwidth abundance’ will drive significant changes."

With such applications in place, it will be a matter of time before

telecommuting becomes a norm. Says Shymol Banerjee, director, DSP Development

Center, Texas Instruments (India), "It started with the need to provide

nursing mothers to access (to the corporate intranet) from home. However, this

is now becoming an alternative work model allowing for more flexibility." A

major change in work culture will be the emphasis on collaboration. The cycle

time between order and delivery will be substantially reduced and enterprises

will allow customers to order on the Web. Says V Venkatraman, senior manager,

channels, Nortel Networks (India), "This means that, where earlier

connectivity was ensured only for critical systems, now it will be for a

corporate-wide collaborative work culture. Access to resources from anywhere

will not be an issue."

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The impact on such working environments is already evident–in

IT companies with development centers spanning the globe which work on projects

on 24-hour cycles. Adds Venkatraman, "Teleworking will come into play at

least in new-economy companies. Even in the old-economy companies like FMCG,

there will be an increase in part-time off-site workers."

Collaboration will be the new buzzword and will move across

the length and breadth of the Indian corporate grid. Sales professionals need

not bother about going to their offices but can instead concentrate at meeting

targets, as information on the latest product developments in terms of price

changes and new dealers would be available on the Net. They could request

holidays by logging on to the company’s intranet and mail the leave

application to their superior or the HR department. If they want interactive

meetings, they could simply use the video conferencing facility rather than

spend hours travelling to a designated place. Though e-mail is already an

established corporate communications tool, with adequate bandwidth, it could

take on a new meaning of facilitating collaboration.

The same could apply to other functions like HR, accounts and

systems that make the presence in the office mandatory, at present. This will

reduce the need for administrative staff and also change the distribution value

chain dramatically.

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The first to take off the block will be the metro employees

as problems of traffic and travelling time rise. Agrees Nayak, "In general,

telecommuting will increase, specially when traffic situations in large metros

are worsening."

Mobile computing

The cell phone and other wireless handheld devices could be

the preferred mode of communication in the corporate world. The prices of basic

services, including Internet access, would come down, so that they would be well

within the reach of corporate employees, due to adequate bandwidth availability

and low prices of equipment. Also, because of similar reasons, there would be a

spur in the growth and usage of mobile computing in the country. Employees

sitting in some remote part of the country and accessing the Net through cell

phones or handheld devices would also become a common corporate feature. As the

storage technology matures to store higher volumes in smaller disks, laptops

could see a serious threat from mobile devices.

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Security perspective

However, another serious implication of non-PC devices

gaining prominence would be from the security perspective. Devices like palmtops

would access information from any PC without even connecting to it. Now, this

capability is being built into mobile phones too. For example, the new Samsung

mobile SGH-A100 uses infrared to exchange information with your colleague’s

computers. Security will become a big issue when employees migrate into a space

where many devices other than PCs start participating in the computing

environment of the enterprise. Agrees Banerjee, "The technology to transfer

information electronically (wired and wireless) has been around for some

time."

In fact, mobile computing devices including handheld devices,

laptops and mobile phones, could only accelerate the death of the cubicle.

However, the upside to the bandwidth cost coming down would be that IT managers

would be able to focus more on setting up secure networks rather than rationing

bandwidth to critical applications. Says Venkatraman, "From a corporate IT

budget point, as bandwidth becomes cheaper, it will free up that much more money

to do a foolproof and secure network."

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Will we have it?

With India emerging as one of the hottest markets in the

coming years, any service provider, MNC or local, will make sure that services

are internationally benchmarked. The problem will occur if the government

continues to dilly-dally on the bandwidth issue. In that case, the majority of

corporate houses will still have to wait.

YOGRAJ VARMA



in New Delhi

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