Oracle's e-Biz Suite Goes Mobile

ByDoug Bartholomew Oracle Corp. is ready for mobile computing, even if most manufacturers aren't. While only a few large companies are using mobile computing applications to manage their business, software giant Oracle Corp. wants to be ready for when the majority of the market follows suit. Oracle recently began offering its mobile-enabled E-Business Suite, allowing customers to access key e-business applications from a variety of wireless devices. One Oracle customer that plans to go wireless with its software applications is Kyocera Wireless Corp., which will do so on its own hardware platform. Kyocera plans to enable its employees to use the Oracle E-Business Suite mobile applications such as CRM, financials, and manufacturing on the Kyocera QCP 6035 smartphone. "At Kyocera Wireless, we firmly believe that companies can realize significant benefits by accessing enterprise applications from devices such as the Kyocera QCP 6035 smartphone," says Masahiro Inoue, president and CEO at Kyocera Wireless, which makes wireless handsets. But adoption of mobile computing for true business applications has yet to go mainstream. In fact, most companies either have no experience with mobile computing, or else they have only tried using mobile applications in a very limited fashion. "The enterprise market for mobile business applications is an untapped growth opportunity," adds Stephen Drake, research manager of the wireless and mobile enterprise access service at IDC, an IT research firm in Framingham, Mass.