Word: fi
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...some companies, says Gartner wireless analyst Phillip Redman, the wi-fi distractions at meetings have got so bad that they use the "say the name twice" rule, because that's often what it takes to get someone's attention...
...sure, wi-fi doesn't make sense for every employee. iAnywhere didn't try to replace its wired network entirely, says CEO Terry Stepien. Some of its engineers need even more bandwidth than the fastest wi-fi networks can support, and the tech-support staff need desks with phone lines, so they don't use wireless laptops. (Eventually, some of them will be able to work wirelessly, using an Internet phone system instead of a regular phone...
Perhaps the true promise (or hazard) of wi-fi for business, says Gartner analyst Leslie Fiering, is its use as a "day extender"--as yet another way to bring work home. Fiering estimates that wi-fi raises the per-employee cost of a laptop by as much as 4% a year, about $325, depending largely on wi-fi access charges while traveling...
Some of that cost is justified by employees' improved productivity on the road. "I'm no longer a bottleneck [when traveling]," Gillespie says. Mallick says he doesn't even set his out-of-office message anymore for short trips. For well-paid knowledge workers, the cost of wi-fi is even more readily absorbed by the extra time they willingly spend on work at home. Because wi-fi makes it so easy to jump on the corporate network from your living room, more employees are working longer hours. Mallick, for instance, says that since he got wi-fi installed...
...wiring has been shaping the way offices look--in some buildings, for example, walls are built not to support the structure but to carry cabling. Next year iAnywhere will move into a brand-new space on the campus of the University of Waterloo that has been conceived with wi-fi in mind. Patrick Simmons, a partner in the firm designing the building, RHL Architects, says wi-fi removes constraints that have become second nature to architects. "You were kind of tethered to the system," Simmons says. "[With wi-fi], you don't have to have walls in a certain place...