That said, I believe reality is close at hand. One of TSG’s partners, Motorola, has brought a solution to market called TEAM (That would be an FLA – a Four Letter Acronym, BTW), which is short for Total Enterprise Access and Mobility. It truly is as close as we’ve ever come to FMC Nirvana.

TEAM devices provide in-building wireless voice support, Windows Mobile O/S, Push to Talk, Text Messaging, Support for Email (the usual suspects: Microsoft and Lotus), contacts, calendar and Internet/Intranet browsing. Since they are Windows based, you can also run Line of Business Applications for different industries such as Healthcare, Manufacturing and Retail on the same device. Add all of these pieces up, and you truly have a single device that can do almost everything a customer would want TODAY. Only one piece is missing: the Wireless to Cellular handoff that will allow you to realize true FMC enlightenment.

If anyone can bring that final piece to market, it is Motorola. Stay tuned. You never know when the last piece of the puzzle -- Dual Mode handoff from Wireless to Cellular and vice versa -- will materialize. Motorola has already announced that it will deliver the solution. Regardless, feel free to contact us here at TSG to find out more details about what we believe is the best thing to hit Wireless Solutions in the last several years.

What is the single interface common to all telephony? Speech, obviously! No matter what telephone system from what manufacturer, what cell phone or PDA/Smart Device you have in your pocket with one to a zillion features, it all boils down to talking. A number of new technologies have come out over the past number of years that have focused on leveraging speech to increase efficiency, and in today’s tough economic environment, anything that makes us more productive is an improvement.

Some of these include the Nuance Employee Enhancement Suite, a speech-based attendant that allows users to find who they are looking for by speaking their name (no more dialing off an auto-attendant and not spelling the name correctly!) and Avaya’s one-X Speech that works in tandem with all of Avaya’s messaging platforms (Intuity, Octel and the newest Modular Messaging) allowing you to access Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes. You can use speech commands to access email, contacts, appointments and make calls hands free. In today’s environment, where many states are enacting hands free laws around use of a cell phone in your car, this feature is a welcome chance to make more productive use of our ever-increasing windshield time.

Finally, on the other side of the equation, the most recent entry into the speech space is a joint effort from Avaya, Mutare and Spinvox, which will take the first 30 seconds of a voice mail left for you on your Avaya voice mail and convert it to text, so you can see it on your PDA or in your email without having to access your voicemail.

No matter what direction we go with technology, the spoken and written word will always be intertwined and someone will always develop a technology to make our lives easier and doing business more productive. To learn more, give us a call or send us an email. We’re flexible. We’ll get back to you one way or the other.