Most resellers know this and are aware they should be embracing the possibilities of wireless in the next 18 months. They also know it's about more than selling a box.

"The ones that will stay in business do," said Sean McKee marketing manager for D-Link Networks Inc. "In terms of resellers, the guys who are the box pushers aren't making any margin -- it's the guys who are selling the total solution, the integrators who are going to be making the margin, particularly on their follow-up services platform."

McKee said D-Link has had considerable success, particularly with its wireless interface cards, and is looking to expand this part of its business during the next 18 months in the education market.

Price says wireless will impact three levels of device communication. The first is the personal area that will address technology such as BlueTooth, the second level is local area networking (LAN) and the third is convergence of technology and business relationships.

"The third area is more complicated because it involves what Compaq is doing in relation to what's going on with the telecommunication companies. So you get a convergence of technology and a convergence of business relationships," he said, referring to the partnership Compaq and Bell Mobility announced in April. Bell Mobility customers will access the company's wireless data and Internet services across a range of devices from Compaq.

There will also be a convergence of channels.

"Some of our computer guys are getting up to speed on what's happening in the area of wide-area networking and are becoming known to, and representatives of carriers. I think in that case, the reseller has to show some initiative as well because this isn't something just Compaq can lead," said Price.

But as hot as wireless seems right now, resellers may find users haven't got the time or money for it all if they can't make it mesh with their current infrastructure, and that creates a challenge.

"Wireless has become sexy all of a sudden and yet two things get in the way," said Greg Larnder, vice-president, business development for Richmond Hill, Compugen Systems Ltd. "Number one is 'What's it going to do for me?' and 'How can I afford it?'"

The strategy, said Larnder, should be one of showing customers how wireless can be woven into the existing infrastructure of an organization and create savings at the same time.

"If you go out there and just promote wireless as a singular solution you aren't really bringing the value to corporate Canada," he said. "We've taken an overall communication approach and the wireless solution becomes a subset as opposed to a solution itself."

As Larnder puts it, the corporate world has been building infrastructure since the early 1980s and it is antsy and anxious about expanding into new technology if it exists separate from what it already has.

"If you really get deep into discussion ,they're tired of it -- they've spent tens of millions of dollars on continually upgrading their local area networks and wide area network and they want to start seeing return on hat. They're hesitant to add to infrastructure right now. (Wireless) is not an add, but an augment or a better way of doing things efficiently -- of leveraging what they have today both on the desktop and opening up their opportunities to move forward," he said.

When a company wants to expand its LAN or add a new one, Larnder says it's more cost effective to go wireless.

"Rather than wiring right to every desktop you wire to a common access point in the building and put a card in everybody's computer and you're off to the races," he said.

Customers must also be assured the technology will work for them. Corporate Canada has said it is ready for wireless but is skeptical that vendors are ready to equip it. However, a recent IDC Canada study commissioned by IBM reveals 100 top executives plan to spend an average $8 million over the next three years to implement wireless solutions. More than 80 per cent of those asked said they expect wireless to improve access to company data, improve work force efficiency and productivity.

The message was similar at Comdex Chicago last month, with 62 per cent of attendees indicating their company's spending for wireless products and services would increase over the next year. Wireless LANs and PDAs are the technologies they were most were interested in purchasing.

In an attempt to capitalize on all that planned spending, collaboration is also emerging within the industry. This is critical according to the big players like IBM and Hewlett-Packard. Vendors of wireless, Internet, computing and software must work together, said Shahla Aly, vice-president of telecommunications and wireless for IBM Canada Ltd.

That has also been the approach Hewlett-Packard has taken with its Mobile e-Services Bazaar. First launched in Helsinki, Finland two years ago, HP has rolled out the concept in seven locations around the world, including Toronto last month. Some of the 400 members of the worldwide bazaar include 3Com Corp., Nortel Networks Ltd. and Voice Genie Technologies Inc.

"This becomes the place where the community will come to create these mobile solutions for the customer community at large," said Geoff Kereluik, national alliances manager for HP in Mississauga.

"The bazaar is where customers will paint the picture as to what they are trying to achieve. Then the resellers, the integrators, the broadband service providers, the application creators can address that specific need as opposed to trying to anticipate what a client is going to want."

Vendors have also been successful in helping organizations find answers by working in partnership with their re-sellers. Enterasys Networks Canada is creating a wireless campus at British Columbia's Simon Fraser University that will allow students to access data from wherever they are -- a dorm room, class room or library -- using the Enterasys RoamAbout platform. Recently Enterasys released the RoamAbout R2, capable of 54 Mbps wireless access, allowing high band width applications such as live video and voice to run over wireless networks.

"What we've seen in the educational in stitutions and a couple of police forces is wireless being deployed to solve communications problems they couldn't solve before using wired networks," said Kelly Kanellakis, director of technology for Mississauga, Enterasys. "Over the last year to 18 months the enterprise and a lot of our channels have started to embrace wireless in a very large way. A lot of the channels are treating it as a second infrastructure solution for their customers."

Consider too that it is early days for wireless adoption and the promise for fu ture growth has many excited about what's to come.

"From what we can tell, certainly the market for wireless handheld devices is going to ramp up over the next few years for Canadian businesses and probably one of the most important services aspect to that is doing the integration work to extending the enterprise applications -- being able to integrate those with the hand-held devices," said IDC Canada senior analyst Jim Westcott.

Westcott said that's not the really big opportunity. Most big wins won't come from integration work, but from doing enterprise applications on the traditional platforms and providing extra services to build out the wireless infrastructure on top of the existing platform.

However, as IDC's study on wireless pointed out, business is also concerned wireless won't be at top speed until 3G networks come into play. (See related story on page 18).

"The real value of extending new wireless applications is still at the very early stages. The network is really under-equipped to deal with them and provide the type of services they would really find valuable or find beneficial so it's probably be a few years away," said Westcott.

But as adoption rates begin to rise, another concern presents itself as resellers unfamiliar wit the wireless space jump on the bandwagon.

Said Larnder: "Nobody's making money on desktops right now so all those integrators across Canada have to find a way to make money. Everybody wants to play in the game but not everybody has made the investment to understand and learn."

WIRELESS SPENDING

OVER NEXT 13 MONTHS

STAY THE SAME 31%

DECREASE 7%

INCREASE 62%

SOURCE: COMDEX/Chicago 2001 Onsite Attendee Survey