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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

March - 2003 - issue > Technology

Unplugging The Enterprise

Keerti Melkote & Pankaj Manglik
Thursday, February 27, 2003
Keerti Melkote & Pankaj Manglik
THE BUZZ IS ON. WI-FI NETWORKS ARE mushrooming everywhere to provide high speed wireless access to the Internet not only from home, but from the streetside café, airports, convention centers and any other public place imaginable.

But what about the enterprise? Enterprise network managers are painfully aware of Wi-Fi as they struggle day after day to keep their networks from breaking apart or being broken into. Unfortunately for them, the Wi-Fi industry has largely ignored the most important issues facing them: namely, ROI, security, and ease of deployment.

The Wi-Fi Conundrum: Mobile Productivity or Cordless Chaos?
The convenience of wireless connectivity and the productivity benefits it brings have always been the clear and obvious reasons for using Wi-Fi.

But these benefits aren’t quantifiable. To wit: What is the ROI on a cell phone for the average employee? Nonetheless, in today’s tight economic climate, corporate IT managers have to answer the dreaded ROI question: Why Wi-Fi?

In many ways, this mirrors the same dreaded ROI question raised when the PC emerged on the corporate computing landscape or, more recently, with regard to the World Wide Web. Wi-Fi networks are in a very similar state today. Many departmental Wi-Fi networks have been deployed to enhance productivity—serving as a testing ground for widespread Wi-Fi.

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