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E). This, of course is no different to other countries that have deployed mobile
applications in government institutions. All government heads use voice or SMS to
communicate with their other government employees within the department and
externally to other government organisations. The majority of the respondents stated
that since the introduction and the deployment of telephony and SMS application, they
have been using them mainly to convey business information, for example sending text
message to suppliers.
Use of WAP to access the web was limited only to the senior managers, director
generals and state ministers. This imposed limits to the use of Push-email and email
access from ordinary cell phones owned by majority of the government employees. One
respondent stated that the limit to access WAP is due to the fact that services provided
by service provider are not standard (Rp1q4). A few of the respondents explained that
the major constraint was that the cost of having access to Smartphone was still too high.
Furthermore, since the technology existed many would have liked to enable such
capability on their privately owned cell-phones, however, as four of the respondents
stated that the costs involve having access to such technologies was still too high. The
participant considered cost to be the main reason that not all government employees had
been issued with work mobile phones.
“It is also very expensive to have a mobile phone that can be used to access internet”
(Rp1q4). “Expensive to have phones with such capabilities” (Rp3q4). “I am aware
Smartphone have that capability but who has the money to own such an expensive
phone” (Rp4q4). “My opinion is that these application services are already there but
the problem is that they are too expensive” (Rp6q4).
WAP (back-office access) has not been deployed yet in any government organisation.
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