“Mobility is much more than just the mobile phone, it’s about general behaviour and freeing workers from their desks. It’s moving about the office or campus, travelling to meet customers and always having the relevant information to hand,” explained Nimans’ Ericsson Business Manager, Chris Birchall.
He continued: “Mobility is the key enabler for a new, more flexible way of working. Supported by convergence and application integration, mobility is the key to success for most enterprises. They want to make and receive calls, access the internet and e-mails no matter where they are in the world - as if they were sitting behind their desk.”
Ericsson is ideally placed to capitalise on and inspire these new trends, according to Ian who pointed out that the handheld Ericsson Mobile Organiser (EMO) is one of several impressive examples of a powerful communication tool for people on the move.
“Mobility is based on a consumer-driven environment where people are on the move more and more, yet always want to be connected to each other. People need to be able to be reached any place, any time, quickly and simply. Operator and service providers will face an increasingly demanding and empowered customer who will be individual, independent, informed and involved. Manufacturers such as Ericsson are leading the way, as reflected by the latest generation of hardware applications such as the new Enterprise Multimedia Server, a feature-rich single box business communication solution which gives business users a single point of contact for any form of communication - voice, e-mail, fax, SMS or instant message - regardless of where they are and what device, fixed or mobile, they want to use.”
Birchall concluded: “Times have changed. Five years ago, if you sent an e-mail and responded within a day or so people were generally happy with that. But today there needs to be a much more instantaneous response so that decisions can be made quickly. It’s about communication on the move, whether that’s sitting behind your desk, at home or travelling around. Once SIP becomes fully established there will be just one point of presence and a much greater use of mobility applications as the current trends move even further forward.”