Motorola Inc.’s Enterprise Mobility Solutions business this week announced a voice-over-Wireless LAN mobile smartphone designed to untether manufacturing engineers and other workers from their desk phones while providing both voice and data communications.
The Total Enterprise Access and Mobility (TEAM) VoWLAN product provides mobile access to PBX phone calls as well as e-mail, calendar/contact synchronization, text messaging, Internet/intranet access, and Windows Mobile 6.1 for line-of-business applications, to improve customer service, collaboration, and productivity, according to the company.
The total technology offering includes two servers in addition to the Windows Mobile VoWLAN smartphones. The Wireless Services Manager (WSM) server provides push-to-talk (PTT) services, text messaging, PBX interoperability, as well as mobility and security. The Network Services Manager (NSM) server provides central provisioning and management. The technology interoperates with most existing WLAN infrastructure technology, and the initial release supports selected IP and TDM PBXs from market leaders, Motorola said in a statement.
The rugged handheld device connects to PTT devices that plant workers may already carry, Russ Knister, senior director of business development, Enterprise Mobility Solutions, told Managing Automation in a briefing. The familiar form factor, modeled after cell phones, makes the device easy to use. Motorola is targeting primarily hourly workers, enabling them to receive phone or two-way radio calls, text messages, and other data while they are walking around the plant, away from their desks. The unit’s battery is said to offer nine hours of continuous talk time, spanning an entire shift.