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European organisations now spend over 30% of their IT and telecoms budget on mobility solutions. This is because they offer an opportunity for greater productivity, cost savings and improved employee morale.

But mobility projects raise concerns for firms about costs and reliability. This means that organisations need to stay focused on identifying their needs and should utilise tried-and-tested technologies to ensure that they can achieve a fast ROI.

The business benefits of an integrated mobility solution stretches right across an organisation and include:

• Increased customer responsiveness
• Greater employee productivity
• Enhanced organisational efficiency
• Streamlined business processes

Leverage your existing investment
One way you can provide a mobile solution to your workforce is to leverage your existing investment in Microsoft Exchange Server. In particular a feature of Exchange Server 2007, Direct Push offers great benefit. Direct Push uses Exchange ActiveSync to keep data on a Windows Mobile powered device (such as a mobile phone or PDA) synchronised with data on your Microsoft Exchange server.

This push method optimises bandwidth usage while keeping users up-to-date. The Technology has two parts: one resides on the device (client), and the other resides on an Exchange Server 2007 mail server:

• Windows Mobile 6 powered device - ActiveSync technology on the device manages Direct Push communication with the Exchange server. It establishes an HTTP or HTTPS connection with the server for a specified time and then goes to sleep while waiting for the server to respond. The server responds with either a status indicating that new items were received or that no new items arrived. The device then sends either a synchronisation request or another Direct Push request.
• Exchange Server 2007 - This version of Exchange server includes a Direct Push component that augments the Exchange ActiveSync infrastructure by supporting manual and scheduled synchronisation. Exchange Server uses IP-based notifications to deliver e-mail, contact, calendar, and task updates to a device as soon as the information arrives at the server.

Familiar interface
Direct Push allows mobile devices to maintain a secure connection with Exchange Server 2007, receiving new or updated e-mail, calendar, contacts and tasks as soon as they arrive on the server.

This makes Windows Mobile an ideal platform on which to base any mobile solution. What’s more Windows Mobile users can use software that they are familiar with in the office, such as Outlook, Word and Excel as well as IE. This means that they can be more productive whenever they are way from their desk and that is before you start thinking about making your business specific applications mobile.

So what are you waiting for - get your mobile employees more productive now!