To Go Wireless, Look to VARs

He didn't say it once; he didn't say it twice: Symbol Technologies President and CEO Bill Nuti said about three or four times that VARs are essential for implementing a wireless environment in the public sector. Why? Because it's growing like gangbusters, and few people out there really get it.

"I'd love to say buying my equipment will solve all of your problems," Nuti said in a keynote Tuesday afternoon at the Fose held in the Washington, D.C. Convention Center. "It doesn't. It takes you to the edge, but unless you turn technology into information, it's useless."

That's arguably truer in wireless than in many other markets--particularly with the emergence of what Nuti called "capture technologies," such as bar code scanning, laser, imaging, biometrics, sensing and RFID. Those very technologies can help the U.S. government inspect incoming cargo, for example, or regulate the dosage of medication in hospitals. That's necessary, given that about 98 percent of all cargo that comes into the United States goes unchecked, and the fourth-biggest killer in health-care institutions is wrong medication or incorrect dosage.

But for all its potential, wireless requires expertise. And for those that become well-versed in emerging wireless technologies, there's a competitive advantage. "This technology offers great opportunities because so few understand it," Nuti says. "Customers can't do it alone. We can't do it alone. [They] will have to work with people who've been there, done that, and gotten the T-Shirt. Because it's hard."

FOSE got off to a bustling start Tuesday, with nearly 20,000 attendees, 530 exhibitors and 416 speakers.