Your cut-out-and-keep guide to today's technology

A look at the latest comms devices for the dedicated road warrior

Value: Wireless local area networks are a very cheap way to extend the reach of your network, compared with laying cables. Cards cost as little as £30. They are also being used to offer internet connectivity in public places.

Problems: Security - the ratified Wep security protocol can be cracked in seconds. A replacement standard has been put forward (Wi-Fi Protected Access) but has not yet been adopted globally. While existing 11Mbit 802.11b is cheap and heavily used, demands for more bandwidth has seen two competing 54Mbit standards emerge: 802.11a and g.

Prospects: Most larger businesses are already using 802.11b wireless Lans to extend the reach of the corporate network. The success of wireless Lans could be damaged by the emergence of competing 54Mbit platforms.

SMS

Value: Cheap, popular form of mobile communication that can be used to alert staff and customers to important information, to communicate with people in the field, and as an interface to access server-based data. Prices start at an average of 10p a message, with many free carrier services available.

Problems: Messages are limited to 160 characters, and input is often using a phone's numeric keypad, although software such as T9 predictive text entry eases input.

Prospects: In the UK the average person sends 30 SMS messages a day, and that figure is still rising. The biggest user group continues to be the young consumer, but business use for advertising and marketing as well as for supplementary communication with staff and customers is set to catch up within the next four years. Devices with full keyboards are also emerging to make writing SMS messages even easier.

LAPTOP COMPUTING

Value: Laptops and tablets allow users to work while travelling, and access business data while at home or away from their desks. Laptop users are more productive, more easily able to work in the field, and use wireless services.

Problems: Laptops and many of their peripherals remain expensive compared with their desktop counterparts. Many of the more affordable devices are too heavy, while battery life and performance is still a problem.

Prospects: Sales are still high, despite the slump in PC sales, as companies turn to the laptop to replace the desktop. This trend will be supported by better battery technology and low-power, high-performance mobile processors such as Intel's Centrino and AMD's Athlon M.

GPRS

Value: GPRS gives mobile phone users cost-effective and higher bandwidth wireless data access than conventional mobile dial-up. Access to Wap services is much faster, while the always-on connection makes mobile email more practical. You can expect speeds as good as home dial-up, depending on content, and are only charged for the data you transfer, not the length of time you are connected.

Problems: Bandwidth is not constant, but is contended (shared) much like broadband. If several people on the same cell are using GPRS at once, data rates will be severely restricted. UK mobile networks are also putting more money into consumer applications than in corporate ones.

Prospects: Mobile networks now offer practical corporate pricing policies for GPRS, and handset manufacturers are building devices and laptop cards that can exploit GPRS.

PDAs

Value: A pocket-sized computer controlled by a touch-screen and stylus rather than a keyboard, the PDA replaces the conventional paper-based diary, as well as performing basic PC functions.

Problems: As a disconnected device running its own OS, it is hard to enforce software policy on PDAs. PalmOS devices rely on their own handwriting shorthand called Graffiti rather than using conventional English characters. Colour devices have short battery life.

Prospects: Sales remain healthy, while the devices continue to improve in terms of usability, power and features. The emergence of uniform standards for synchronisation (namely SyncML) will help to create standard apps and methods for interfacing PDAs with other devices.

EMAIL PAGERS

Value: Not much bigger than a pocket calculator, with a tiny full keyboard and a large mono screen. Cheap to run, and as portable as a mobile phone. Users can send and receive email on the move over a GPRS data connection, as well as deal with text messages, and on some models, make and receive phone calls as well.

Problems: Users still don't like the 'one device does all' approach of these devices, preferring to carry a phone as well, which defeats much of the cost saving. The Blackberry, in particular, can be expensive to deploy: handsets are cheap, but the server software is anything but.

Prospects: The email pager is a corporate killer app for GPRS, but has been held back by cost and poor sales efforts by some UK distributors. That is set to change with the release of cheaper, server-less devices that can be bought off the shelf for about £100 to £150, giving access to email, text messages, phone and basic PDA functions.

THIRD-GENERATION

Value: 3G is supposed to offer fast always-on data rates, the convergence of voice, video and data, and access to rich media services. Users can in theory make video calls to customers and access more extensive web services as well as Wap and email over the near ISDN-rate data service.

Problems: 3, the first UK 3G provider, has had a bad start, signing up only a handful of customers. It also has no business offering, the launch handsets are hard to use, and video and data services are of poor quality.

Prospects: By being first to market by nearly two years, 3 has set the benchmark for what not to do. User-friendly handsets from the likes of Nokia are expected next year, but businesses have no reason to move from cheap GPRS.

SMARTPHONES

Value: Combines the basic features of a GPRS-enabled mobile phone with the basic features of a colour-screen PDA. The idea is to create a single device for both jobs, cutting cost and making for more efficient use of both services (shared data connection, shared address book, shared storage and so on).

Problems: The first smartphones to go on sale in the UK have not done well. Some were just too bulky, being more like a PDA than phone; others were too small and awkward to use, as well as suffering from bugs and poor battery life.

Prospects: The future for Microsoft's Windows Pocket PC smartphone platform is not looking good: the company and its UK partner Orange are bogged down in legal challenges over alleged anti-competitive behaviour and copyright infringement. More promising are smartphones based on the Symbian platform backed by handsets from Sony Ericsson, Nokia and Sendo. Early handsets sold well.

THIN CLIENTS

Value: By hosting the operating system and the applications on a server rather than on a client, full installations of Windows and application suites such as Office can be accessed on anything with a browser, such as a laptop, kiosk, PDA or someone else's PC.

Problems: For remote access to work, all the processing and file handling is done at the back-end and not on the desktop, so you need lots of bandwidth, powerful servers with plenty of memory and lots of storage. This can be tough for companies without network infrastructure or IT staff capable of managing the hardware.

Prospects: Despite being a very cost-effective and sensible option on paper, the fact is that users prefer the autonomy of a fully-featured desktop or laptop PC over a dumb terminal. Particularly for field and home workers, carrying around a mobile device is still the preferred option to centrally hosted applications, OS and storage.

WIRELESS BROADBAND

Value: Geographical boundaries and reach restrict DSL and cable broadband services. Wireless broadband is designed to offer equivalent services to wired broadband over two-way radio services of 5GHz and above. Wireless broadband has the potential for use by mobile devices for voice and data, offering a potential rival to mobile phone systems as well as static PC installations.

Problems: Wireless broadband relies on line-of-sight to the transmitter, meaning that it still won't suit all locations and devices. However, it will further reduce the area of the UK without broadband access. Wireless broadband frequencies are not uniform across territories, meaning that multi-band devices will be needed.

Prospects: NTL first touted wireless broadband two years ago and had a working trial in place, yet failed to bring a service to market. Frequencies are being auctioned at realistic prices, and Hong Kong telco PCCW is set to snap up nearly all of them. It seems very serious about bringing a service to market and, because it does not rely on local loop access or digging up roads, deployment should not take long and the cost should be low.

FOURTH GENERATION

Value: The next planned step for mobile phone technology beyond 3G is supposed to offer data speeds in line with today's domestic broadband services, as well as true voice-over-IP from the handset and improved video conferencing features. Added benefits will come from integration with landlines, which will allow companies to deploy 4G handsets with a single number that acts as a landline phone in the office and mobile phone on the move.

Problems: Because operators paid far more than was sensible in their key European markets, most are likely to run 3G services until the end of their licence periods to recoup their investment before deploying 4G.

Prospects: The potential is huge, with even more bandwidth available, and hence the possibility of more mobile services. But development of the technology is likely to be held back by cash-strapped telcos and handset makers struggling to develop practical devices.

WEARABLE COMPUTING

Value: Computing devices such as GPS locators, mobile phones and basic computers will be built into everyday clothing such as jackets, hats, and shoes, or will take the form of a device worn on the wrist much like a watch. The idea is that users can be tracked in case of emergencies, as well as having transparent access to IT and communication services. Accessing the web will be as easy as checking the time.

Problems: Improves the mobility of the device, but restricts user choice because it means they always have to wear the same jacket for their embedded GPS device, for example. Battery technology is also far behind the evolution of the technology, and there are concerns over the impact of radiation from devices.

Prospects: It's unlikely that we will see the most transparent of embedded wearable computers in the next 10 years. What is far more likely is a move to wearable mobile phones and PDAs. The technology will be integrated into wrist wear, although the items will be much larger than a conventional watch. However, a sudden leap in battery technology could change this overnight.