Insider’s Look at the Best of WES 2007

The Wireless Enterprise Symposium 2007 brings you the best of the wireless industry in a single event that will bring you up-to-date on the premier wireless technologies for enterprise productivity. In this short Q&A, Alan Panezic, VP Software Product Management at Research In Motion gives you an early glimpse into the hot topics, events and opportunities waiting for you at WES 2007.

BlackBerry Connection® (BC): Why is it important for anyone interested in wireless technology to attend WES 2007?

Alan Panezic (AP): Whereas wireless was once a nice-to-have, people now have budgets for wireless development. It’s getting written into business plans everywhere and IT groups want reliable information on best practices. But the industry moves so rapidly. By coming to WES, you can talk to the very people who are advancing the future of wireless technology, and collect all your information at a single event. That is an immensely valuable learning opportunity for any company building a wireless strategy.

BC: If you had to pinpoint one premier mobile technology that will be appearing at WES, which one would you say is the most impressive?

AP: I would have to say Over-the-Air software loading. One of the toughest things about deploying wireless devices is what happens after you’ve deployed them and some new software comes out. How do you upgrade potentially tens of thousands of devices that can and will be anywhere? Over-the-air software loading is a fundamental change in terms of the total cost of ownership – it takes one of the single greatest costs in a wireless deployment and reduces it to almost nothing. We will be previewing this technology and showing administrators how to deploy it in the Wireless Architectures track.

Also, in the track called New Frontiers for Mobile and Wireless, we’re showcasing the next release of the BlackBerry® solution platform. Attendees will see where we’re going next, and how it makes life easier for the IT person. We’ll demonstrate the new features that make development and management easier, and drive higher availability.

BC: Let’s talk about the hot topics in the breakout sessions this year. What’s in store for IT Administrators?

AP: The Wireless Architectures track is perfect for IT Administrators, there’s a great best practices session in this track called Keeping Up with the Upgrades: Managing the Lifecycle of Your BlackBerry Smartphones. Another session in this track is Defying the Threat of Mobile Malware: BlackBerry Security Safeguards. This session shows how the BlackBerry® Enterprise Solution minimizes the risk and restricts intruder access.

BC: And what can Developers look forward to?

AP: Developers will be really interested in the Application Development and Integration track, where there are two great kick-start sessions for bringing mobile applications into the enterprise: Get Started with Mobilizing Your Enterprise Applications and Developing Applications for the BlackBerry Solution: You've Got Options!

BC: And what are some worthwhile strategic-level sessions?

AP: For people looking for the big picture, I’d say the session to attend is the Analyst Spotlight: The Next Evolution of Wireless Applications. That’s in the Mobile Strategies and Opportunities track. And there’s another track called New Frontiers of Mobile and Wireless, with a session I expect to be very popular called The BlackBerry Enterprise Solution and Brave New Frontiers of Mobility.

BC: Talk about the Solutions Showcase, which you describe as the wireless equivalent of speed dating!

AP: Yes, that’s right! At the Solutions Showcase – which is our technology marketplace – you get to see the best of the industry in one place, at one time. So if you're thinking about field service, for example, you're going to see a range of different field service applications from a range of solution providers. If you're trying to figure out which wireless carrier you might want to go with, or even who the different ones are, they're all going to be in the Solutions Showcase.

Some people like going to WES simply to meet with all these BlackBerry Alliance Partners because it is such a big time saver. You can easily meet four partners a day, meaning you can assess twelve partners in just three days. That’s months of legwork saved plus, at a show like this, you’re meeting with the most senior people.

BC: Panel discussions with industry experts are new this year. What sort of topics will be discussed?

AP: One of our panels will focus on Unified Communications, which is about making both voice and email interactions much more efficient. For instance, by bringing full enterprise phone features right out to the mobile device, and by consolidating multiple voice mails and phone numbers down to one. It’s an area where everyone expects tremendous growth.

The other panel is Going Beyond Email, Getting Results. Opportunities to mobilize corporate data are endless now, and this panel will discuss popular applications with the most compelling efficiency and ROI gains for enterprises.

BC: There are more than 100 breakout sessions offered this year. What can attendees expect there?

AP: The breakouts are focused on wireless solutions for real-world business scenarios. But they’re also about meeting people who are in very similar situations to you, and exchanging ideas and best practices. WES attracts leaders from virtually every business sector, government to health to manufacturing. What people tell us is, “Yeah, the conference was great and the material was great, but where I got greatest value was talking to three other people, like me, about how they solved a similar challenge.”