New research from market analyst Forrester suggests
thatmobility initiatives
are gaining increasing importance among organisations, accounting for three of the top five enterprise
telecommunications priorities.
Forrester says that for years there has been a lot of talk but
not much action around enterprise mobility but that right now the
tide is turning. According to ‘Enterprise Network And
Telecommunications Survey, North America And Europe, Q1 2008’,
wide scale deployment of wireless networks, availability of mobile
devices, and increased interest in mobile applications have driven
demand for enterprise mobility products.
The research firm believes that it has identified three
enterprise mobility user profiles, each with a unique profile and
user requirements. The mobile purchasing decision-making process is
also changing to include business unit executives as well as IT
executives.
To address emerging opportunities in the enterprise mobility
arena, vendors, including service providers, systems integrators,
device manufacturers, and application developers, must establish
partnerships and alliances to expand reach and ensure application
usability; ensure that marketing efforts reach all business, IT,
and telecom decision-makers; and make mobile usability a paramount
focus.
Commented Michele Pelino, Forrester Senior Analyst, “Since early
2000, buzz has abounded about
enterprise mobility being the next big thing. To date, however,
widespread enterprise mobility adoption has focused primarily on a
limited number of C-level executives and employees on the go. Now,
we are finally on the cusp of the enterprise mobility boom that has
long been predicted — but never quite happened. This year, three of
the top five corporate telecommunications initiatives are
mobility-related. In fact, the top priority across 65% of firms is
to provide more mobility support to employees.”
The reasons for this increase are three-fold says Forrester:
more types of wireless networks; greater device diversity; an
increased number of mobile applications.
Forrester believes that today more firms relative to 2007 are
using all types of
wireless networks such as wireless local area networks (WLans),
public cellular, and Wi-Fi networks, and furthermore 44% of these
firms implemented more than one type of wireless network.
On such networks, firms are supporting and managing a variety of
device types including BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm, Linux,
Symbian, and 82% of firms support more than one device type — and
it’s only going to get worse as employees continue to ask, to use
their favourite personal device, such as the iPhone, at work to
access email and other corporate information.
Also over the past year, Forrester says that interest in
enterprise wide applications (e.g., mobile sales force or inventory
management) or vertically-focused mobility applications (e.g.,
mobile healthcare applications) have gained momentum, as the number
of inquiries it receives on these topics it jumped approximately
40% between 2006 and 2007.
Forrester recommends that in order to take advantage of the
emerging and appealing enterprise mobility opportunity firms should
develop a clear, cohesive enterprise mobility story. It also
advises vendors to identify which enterprise mobility solution
components they address and how these solutions benefit the
mobility requirements of organisations. It also says that vendors
must identify appropriate partners to support and enhance the
enterprise mobility story and focus on usability.