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The corporate adoption of technologies that support the mobile workforce is patchy, slow and fragmented. That is the conclusion of a new survey of decision-makers at mid-sized and large enterprises across Europe by IT industry analyst group Ovum.

The research found that even companies identified by Ovum as "high mobility" - those with a large proportion of workers whose job functions have no fixed location - were making less use of mobile technologies than researchers had expected, and adoption of so-called advanced mobile devices, such as PDAs and smart phones, remains very low.

That is surprising, given the number of roaming workers. In the average European company, says the analyst group, 21% of staff are "truly mobile" (no fixed location) and a further 15% were "occasionally" mobile. But over half of truly mobile workers are not supplied with any kind of communications or computing device to enhance their role.

Another problem is that the responsibility for driving mobile computing or communications projects seems divided, with IT and communications departments and lines of business each undertaking their own initiatives, often with little or no central co-ordination.

IT departments, Ovum found, all too frequently view mobile technologies as primarily an infrastructure issue rather than a business opportunity. As a result, IT managers focus on quality of service and cost, rather than the business opportunities mobile technology offers.

Even so, Ovum predicts that investment in mobile technologies will increase between now and the end of 2005, with mobile email and field service and field sales automation the most significant technologies. But for now, the firm believes that businesses are missing the potential benefits of mobile technology - and that vendors are failing to convince buyers of the business case.

"We are not surprised at all by the findings," says Jessica Figueras, senior analyst at Ovum and co-author of the report. "In many cases organisations are finding it hard to make a business case - but in some companies there may be a business case but they have not yet spotted it."

The Ovum findings come as separate studies show that the number of mobile workers is growing steadily. Research carried out by virtual network operator Sirocom suggests that three million people worked from home over the 2003 Christmas period, up 20% on 2002. And research carried out earlier by IDC predicted that half of the UK workforce would undertake some form of mobile working by 2007.

Even so, Ovum's survey of European enterprises suggests that IT departments are taking a "reactive" approach to mobile - responding to pressure from other parts of the business for a mobile solution - rather than developing a central strategy.

Moreover, general management staff are the most likely to have high-end mobile devices. Such executives are more likely to press for services such as mobile email, and so are prioritised by IT departments.

Sometimes, this comes at the expense of facilities for less visible groups even when their job function is intrinsically mobile, such as field service teams.

One reason for the discrepancy in the researchers' findings could result from the different definitions of mobile working. It is relatively easy to find pockets of highly sophisticated mobile workers in most companies, using laptops and GPRS (general packet radio services) or Wifi connections to connect while they are on the road.

It is less common to see enterprise-wide deployments of mobile business applications. To date, the most advanced companies have been in the utilities and distribution sectors and, increasingly, the healthcare field. But these are usually tightly integrated vertical applications, written to use specialist software such as meter reading and repair scheduling.

"It's often assumed that mobility is about taking processes you already have and making them mobile," Figueras explains. "But you may not have the underlying data infrastructure to mobilise. Many areas of business where you want to use mobility have not experienced automation. They may not have a way to collect data, or even know what data they want."

Even so, where parts of companies - such as field sales or warehousing and distribution - still rely heavily on paper-based processes, mobile technologies are increasingly likely to be considered as part of any automation plan. Gartner predicts that, by the end of the decade, as many as 80% of business transactions will involve exchanging information with mobile workers.

Mobile technologies are most likely to be added when IT departments embark on a major update to central IT systems, replacing dated technologies. This approach is a pragmatic one, as only a minority of European enterprises have established a central strategy for mobile services, according to Ovum. Few companies have centralised their mobile purchasing arrangements, for example, with both services and hardware buying split between lines of business, IT and telecommunications departments.

But the next generation of mobile projects will be more business oriented, Ovum predicts. Enterprises will concentrate more on projects that will deliver cost savings or other efficiencies, and pay more attention to how mobile technologies can fit in with business process automation. The potential benefits can be substantial, but do not come easily.

"Companies may well be looking at automation and mobilisation at the same time," cautions Figueras. But that is still a long way from setting up a wireless LAN or organising a data card for a laptop.