Push-To-Talk Comes to Enterprise PDAs

Sci-Tech Today reports that "Pangean Technologies last month launched Y-Talk, a session initiation protocol-based software application that brings push-to-talk functionality to any personal digital assistant, or PDA, that operates on the Windows Mobile operating system. The application is targeted primarily at campus environments in the hospital, warehouse, and retail sectors and currently is available on Symbol Technologies' MC50 and MC70 enterprise digital assistants."

According to the article, "Y-Talk, which utilizes voice-over-Wi-Fi technology, first was developed for PCs about two years ago to provide enhanced internal communications for enterprises, specifically by allowing them to create an ongoing talk group for each project team and/or department within the organization."

John Jackson at Yankee Group said the "introduction of Y-Talk as "compelling," given the increasing deployment of PDAs in "campus-based, workgroup-centric environments." He cautioned that "although there is tremendous interest in and investment going into voice over wireless local area networks (LANs) in the enterprise, there still exists barriers to deployment and adoption."

Jackson said, "Most existing wireless LANs in enterprises are not optimized for voice in the traditional sense ... of a circuit-switched call. So these networks require considerable optimization and, in many cases, wholesale equipment upgrades to handle the resource intensity of multiple simultaneous data users."

However Jackson noted that "P2T applications are far less resource-intensive." He added, "That's the beauty. They are short and bursty by nature, and you can probably build in some quality-of-service intelligence into the application itself."