Roger Trapp: A Berry good idea that could be tastier

Thanks to the wonders of new technology, a new word - or rather a new application of an old one - has crept into the language.

Thanks to the wonders of new technology, a new word - or rather a new application of an old one - has crept into the language. The other day, I read of somebody "Blackberrying". This was, of course, a reference to a traditional English late-summer activity, I thought. Until I appreciated the significance of the capital "B", that is.

Then I smiled at the way in which a gadget which few people had heard of - and fewer had seen - a year ago had suddenly become such a part of everyday life that no explanation was necessary.

Certainly, the Blackberry is one of those great technology applications that has immediately found a market. The mobile telephone, once it had outgrown its "yuppie" image, was quickly seen as an invaluable aid by today's harassed professionals because it enabled its users to stay in touch with the office when away. But the Blackberry provides so much more. Because of its e-mail function, users can not only keep in touch with the office, but respond to those requests for more data for next week's presentation, a fuller explanation of last week's report, etc.

Now, this is not meant to be an advertisement for the nifty little machine that plays such a big part in many people's lives that some have started to refer to it as a "Crackberry". But you only have to be out in the countryside with a laptop and modem trying to send an e-mail via the conventional means of a telephone line to appreciate it. The Government may be committed to a "wired Britain". But a recent experience taught me that people are often reluctant to lend you their internet connection to send that document upon which your office is so dependent - so worried are people about spam and viruses.

Which brings me to a report published earlier this month by the mobile telephone company O2. It says that companies in the UK employing between one and 99 employees are predicted to invest £7.3bn in mobile technologies this year, but they are failing to use this investment to harness the full benefits of mobile working.

The survey, which claims to be the most extensive undertaken in the UK into business mobility, reveals that small and medium-sized businesses will commit 16 per cent of their total IT spend to wireless projects this year, which is a significantly higher investment than that of corporates as a proportion of total IT spend. However, they are failing to use the investment to harness the benefit of true mobile working, with most using the technology at a superficial level to store data as they work rather than taking advantage of wireless connectivity.

The report's analysis of those businesses with a live wireless project either underway or complete highlights a lack of synchronisation between mobile technologies. The core objectives driving mobile investment were not to harness connectivity but to provide access to more static functions such as an electronic calendar or PowerPoint presentation on the move. Mobile functionality, such as improving access to e-mail or remote working, was much lower on the list of priorities. For example, the primary driver for notebook deployment was to allow greater flexibility for working location, with e-mail and remote working the fourth and fifth priorities. Similarly with PDAs, e-mail was the third priority but access to data like calendar and addresses was the top concern.

This seems odd. With resources under even more pressure in a small business, you would expect an effort to make much more effective use of them. The traditional explanation for not following the big boys - lack of funds - does not seem to apply, since these businesses are already spending money in this area.

So maybe it is just that smaller businesses have not yet caught on to the possibilities offered by the latest mobile technology. Most Blackberry users seem to be from the sort of large organisations that regularly update their information technology equipment. When you're spending a few million on new servers or laptops, buying hundreds of such gadgets must seem like quite small beer.

If this is the case, then the mobile industry is missing a trick. As we all know, small businesses account for more of the working population than their larger counterparts, and if the industry took the time to market to this market and price its products and services appropriately it would be on to a winner. After all, for some of these businesses, an all-singing, all-dancing mobile device might be all the technology they need.