Mobility in Australia is Challenging



Snake is 5 meters (15 feet) long
Click Image to Enlarge

I had the privilege of speaking at a conference in Australia this week and spending time with many utilities and construction companies.  The challenges in Australia can be highlighted by this image of a snake, provided by Jeff Morgan from Electrix taken from the window of a utility vehicle in Australia.  This snake is of a very aggressive and deadly nature.  I was also intrigued by the many spider stories that were shared by the field engineers that I spent time with this week.  Seems spiders really like electrical meter boxes.

In addition to the biting and stinging variety of challenges, there are many connectivity challenges in a country as big and remote as Australia.  It doesn't take long to lose connectivity once you leave the main roads in Australia.  Companies use specialized radios and satellite phones and up-links a lot in this region. 

Any mission critical mobile application such as field services and enterprise asset management needs to be designed to work equally well connected or disconnected from the Internet in Australia.  That takes databases on the mobile client, syncing technology and back office integration.  In other words, these kinds of mobile solutions are naturals for Sybase's SUP and SQL Anywhere architecture.

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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer

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Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.