Email only mobile app needed
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Mobile workers kept in touch by email....
Email remains overwhelmingly the most important application for remote workers, according to the latest research, despite a proliferation of back-office applications being made mobile-ready.
The popularity of devices such as the BlackBerry is testament to how workers have embraced mobile email. Now research from network equipment maker ShoreTel shows that 73% of UK IT managers polled report having enabled mobile email systems.
Three-quarters of those said that email was the single most important application for mobile working.
While that figure is not so surprising, it does highlight the relative simplicity of most mobile working strategies. While email can keep road warriors in tune with new developments, it does not have the functional richness of today's enterprise applications that their desk-bound colleagues will exploit.
Speaking to Information Age recently, Jeff McDowell, VP for global alliances at BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) said he businesses would benefit immensely from providing mobile access to other enterprise applications.
“At first email is a great way to get information. But there is so much more you can do once you make alerts actionable and integrated with other systems, such as customers relationship management,” he said.
RIM obviously has a vested interest in growing the market for mobile applications, but so far businesses have remained trenchantly unimpressed.
Recently, SAP CEO Henning Kagermann admitted he had been “disappointed” by the lack of interest in deploying mobile application.
ShoreTel questioned 105 UK IT managers about mobile working practices within their companies.
