Word: wi
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...alone. In 2002, 20% of business laptops were Wi-Fi enabled. By 2005, analysts believe, that number will be more like 95%. Apple started things rolling in 1999 with its Wi-Fi system, known as AirPort, and in January unveiled a speedier upgrade called AirPort Extreme. Last month, in a bid to boost demand for laptops (and Intel processor chips), Intel released Centrino, a mobile technology that features a new microchip and a built-in Wi-Fi receiver...
Whether anyone will make serious money off the technology is an open question. Wi-Fi is shaping up to be one of those destructive technologies--like the Internet--that deliver huge benefits to users while slashing profit margins for existing businesses (think of what the Net did to travel agencies). It's easy to see how a blazing-fast connection on a big-screen laptop--anytime, anywhere--might pose a threat to firms like Sprint and Verizon, which are investing billions of dollars to deliver fancy 3G data services over your cell phone or laptop at slower rates and steeper...
...hurdle is the technology's simplicity, and the ease with which anyone can provide it. Ignore the geeks who use Wi-Fi's painful official designation, 802.11. Here's a more familiar name for the technology: radio. The Wi-Fi card in your laptop is a receiver, and the Wi-Fi router--which plugs into a cable or DSL modem at your home or office or coffee shop--is nothing more than a short-range transmitter-receiver. (Here's a piece of trivia for your next cocktail party: the patent on which Wi-Fi technology is based was filed back...
...range of transmission is usually 150 ft. to 300 ft., which makes Wi-Fi ideal for home use. It also works in most workplace settings. Shipping companies were the first to see the value of Wi-Fi in warehouses; FedEx estimates its Wi-Fi-enabled workers are 30% more productive since they've been unleashed. Hospitals and college campuses came next. Today 57% of all U.S. corporations, including all of the FORTUNE 1,000, have at least a small-scale Wi-Fi network, although only a few tech-savvy firms like Qualcomm and Novell have so far dared to roll...
That goes double for road warriors, the real source of potential wealth in the wider Wi-Fi world. These are the field sales reps, insurance adjusters, real estate agents and delivery managers. There are more than 11 million road warriors in the U.S. alone who regularly dial in remotely to corporate networks, and 90% of them are using slow-as-mud 56K modems via standard phone lines. The advantage of untethering office workers is relatively unproved (Won't they just instant message one another during meetings?), but even the most technophobic CEO can imagine the benefit of her top salesman...