Monday, November 23, 2009

Future principle: ubiquitous access

James Robertson writes in his latest Column Two Post.
In 2015, staff will have ubiquitous access to information and functionality, delivered at the point of need, regardless of where they may be. This means going beyond the “intranet as an internal website”, a concept that has been holding back intranet teams for many years.
James has a clear vision of how Intranets will be expected to deliver by 2015. Full and seamless access to all the information you require to do you job quickly, efficiently and conveniently and the ability to do so wherever you are is certainly a worthwhile goal for an Intranet.

I have recently been investigating the possibility of providing key intranet content like contact information and employee self service function via mobile device. But first I am told I must decide on which mobile platform I am going to deliver my Intranet content to. Blackberry or iPhone?

I think I am going to tread water for a little longer before I commit and see what smart middleware developer can come with something that will handle both..

If you are such a developer or supplier, feel free to post comment and we can discuss.

3 comments:

James Dellow said...

What exactly do you have in mind? Are you thinking about building or acquiring parallel apps or are you trying to find something that will automatically optimise the content to the mobile Web browsers for these two mobile devices? Also, what is driving the current need to make an iPhone vs Blackberry decision?

Peter Richards said...

We would like to do the latter. Pick a few key apps currently available and optimise for mobile device. Most use Blackberry but I would like to accommodate those who prefer the iPhone.

James Dellow said...

In the first instance, why not just create a m.intranet site that optimised for the small screen rather than a particular device? The next step after that might be to develop style sheets for different mobile devices.

Also, for the staff directory, have you looked at existing methods of integrating contacts from the corporate address book on those devices or maybe one of those enterprise microblogging services? They often have a staff directory component in a native app.