7PQ bando FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IAPP progetto collaborativo "L-SABER PROJECT" - progetto valutato positivamente SME's (Small and Medium Enterprises) make up 98% of all EU enterprises (ref: Small Business First 2008, Edition 2008 - European Comission) and provide around 80million jobs. SMEs are vital for the EU economy as a whole and for regional growth, wealth and most importantly innovation. It is well recognised that Innovation, especially information technology innovation is driven from the European SME community. Mobile and Wireless internet technology has advanced so much that the concept of the "connected field worker" is well defined: the ability to "do business" outside the constraints of the office, headquarters or field office is a well integrated function of larger enterprsises - think of parcel delivery businesses requiring Customer signatures on parcel delivery or warehouseman recording inventories within a large warehouse. Integration of data captured via handheld devices is now a common feature of Enterprise Management Systems. The dilemma faced by the SME sector is that handheld devices and management systems are; very expensive to deploy, with a ruggedised handset, capable of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag scanning and data integrate running into thousands of Euro per device with associated large software costs Reliant on proprietary, de facto standards, expensive operating systems and a multitude of device manufacturers Interfaces between end user handheld devices and back office applications are un-defined and tend to be proprietary and expensive to implement. The aim of the proposal IAPP project is to bring together Universities in UK and Italy with SME's and larger businesses in Russia, Finland, UK and Italy and to create a long term, strategic partnership. This partnership will collaborate in joint reserach into the business methodologies and emerging wireless technologies that would enable SMEs to adopt and benefit from mobile technologies in their operation and working practices.
