Canadians love their wireless devices. More than 15 million are active wireless users, tapped into cell phones, pagers, mobile radios and mobile satellite phones. And according to the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, the number of users is growing rapidly. There is big money in this wireless world: between 2000 and 2001, wireless revenues in Canada increased to $6.4 billion, a leap of almost 20 per cent.
Last December, the HP e-business team started thinking, wouldn’t all those wireless users benefit from having access to a wireless portal? The idea took hold and in a record eight weeks the team was able to proudly unveil another HP Canada first: http://wireless.hp.ca/, the industry’s only wireless solution portal that’s actually accessible to wireless devices.
“The site gives HP a jump on the competition,” says Brent Chaters, Mobile Communication Program Manager for the e-Business Marketing Team, located at HP headquarters in Mississauga. “We’re always looking for innovative ways to interact with our customers, and to open up new channels of communication.”
A site geared to the Canadian market
What makes this site unique is that it allows HP to communicate to wireless users through their wireless devices using existing web content. HP in the United States has a similar portal – most of the content on wireless.hp.ca originates there – but the U.S. portal is not wirelessly enabled. The Canadian portal is also geared specifically to the Canadian market.
Another first is that wireless.hp.ca categorizes wireless users into different categories: Home/Home Office, Small-to-Medium Business, and Enterprise segments. Rather than separate portals for each segment, it’s all there on the one site.
Wireless.hp.ca can be accessed from an iPAQ, personal digital assistant or browser-equipped cell phone. Using infrastructure developed by HP partner OceanLake, the page is actually re-encoded on the fly to display properly on the device. “Without this encoding,” says Brent, “the page would display as a jumble of images.”
Wireless solutions for the novice and experienced user
You don’t have to be a wireless whiz to benefit from the site. The information and services on wireless.hp.ca are intended to be as useful to first-time single users as to experienced corporate purchasers. “The Wireless Solution Centre is an amazing resource,” says Brent. “There is everything from ‘Tips and Tools’ with advice on managing email and learning to use your new wireless device, to White Papers on Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for experienced users.”
Users can also access specifications and services and order products online.
Wireless.hp.ca allows HP to “understand how people interact with the site, which allows us to control its growth,” says Brent. “We can see the types of devices that are connecting to it and what information customers are looking for. The strategy for growth will evolve as we get a feel for the customers’ needs.”
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