Author Archive
Monday, August 22nd, 2011
Evan Kaplan, CEO
As a CEO, I like to see our employees. Maybe it’s my extroverted nature. I feel energized when I stop by and see engineering folks in the daily scrum and I like talking to our sales people face to face about deals they are working on. I don’t think I am alone … from my discussions with other CEO’s I think lots of us feel the same.
When I was single with no kids there weren’t any constraints around being in the office. But as my family has grown I really have come to appreciate the value of logging on later at night after the kids are asleep, or being able to just send out that one edit from vacation before my wife catches me.
For me the growth in my family has come at roughly the same time as the dramatic rise in mobile networks, services and devices and increasingly I have to rethink my views on the practice of workshifting (flexible work schedules that enable employees to work wherever and whenever they want — It is our business after all!) and the tremendous reach and flexibility that this rise has afforded me and my family.
We published our quarterly mobility report today and the data for enterprise workers is clear …. Workshifting has now become the expectation of nearly all enterprise employees. In our latest iPass Mobile Workforce Report we found that although 95 percent stated their employers encouraged or tolerated workshifting—40 percent would like to have an even more flexible work environment.
And if they aren’t getting enough flexibility at work, 33 percent would seek employment elsewhere, 57 percent would be less satisfied with their job, and 45 percent would feel less productive. We should take note—if we don’t provide the flexibility today’s mobile employees feel entitled to—they will seek out those companies who do allow them the freedom to work when and where they choose.
Employee turnover is a significant expense for any company, but it is hardly a reason to loosen up the reigns and let our employees workshift en masse. What we’ve found is that if your enterprise can successfully embrace workshifting, your employees will reward you many times over with deeper loyalty, improved productivity, and let’s not forget—greater profitability. Let’s look at the evidence:
- Mobile employees work more hours. In fact 75 percent of those surveyed claim to work more hours due to workshifting — more than half work at least 10 or more additional hours each week, and 12 percent work 20 or more additional hours.
- Mobile employees are on demand. They work around the clock, 38 percent work before their commute, 25 percent work during their commute, 37 percent work during lunch, and 37 percent work at night — each and every day. Even on vacation, 97 percent stay connected to technology and nearly all did so at least partly for work.
- Mobile employees feel more productive and efficient. 79 percent reported increased productivity and 78 percent reported increased efficiency.
- Employees who workshift report improved work/life balance and more than half feel more relaxed because of the flexibility.
And I won’t deny that it’s still very important for me to see folks in the office. I continue to believe employees can thrive in a collaborative office culture that engenders inspiration, competition and a drive to succeed and that some very important work has to be done face to face ….. But I keep in mind that nearly three quarters of mobile workers are in the office most days, choosing times that work around their team, meetings and home life schedules. If my employees spend less time commuting and more time focused on creating stuff and delivering on their commitments, it’s truly a win-win.
Mobile Workforce Report, August 23, 2011
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Infographic: The 24 Hour Workshift is Upon Us, August 23, 2011 >>
Workshifting – Yes, No or Tolerated? >>
Monday, May 9th, 2011
Evan Kaplan, CEO
Today Deutsche Telekom in conjunction with iPass introduced a new service called Wi-Fi Mobilize that will help carriers address the second wave of Wi-Fi. It’s a new network service exchange for in-country and international roaming that enables carriers to meet the accelerating demand from customers for data on smartphone and tablet devices.
It’s clear now that all of the traffic engineering, spectrum licensing, femto cell-ing, and next “G” ing can’t keep up with the avalanche of data requirements unleashed by smartphones, iPad and tablets in addition to everything in the cloud revolution that has been accelerating down the track faster than anyone could have imagined three years ago.
Telecom carriers are cleverly turning to that anarchic, best effort, cheap and cheerful technology, Wi-Fi, to help them handle the demand for data. We are seeing it all over the connected world and especially here in the United States. Get an iPhone… Get religious about Wi-Fi…. Get the iPad… Get even more devout …. Get 12 Android handsets and a couple of tablets on your network and now you’re a Zealot!
Commercial Wi-Fi, free or paid, has to become a carrier offering. Why?
Because as a mobile operator:
- I see hundreds of millions of devices delivered every year that don’t have, and probably never will have, anything but a Wi-Fi chipset — I want those users monetized on service from me.
- I have millions of travelers who roam onto other networks and can’t handle the bill shock they have whenever they get home — shame on me — I did nothing to help them
- Spectrum is expensive, build out is expensive, backhaul is expensive — if I can offload internet traffic without running it over my expensive infrastructure — that’s good news
- Oh, and by the way, in many cases I already own a Wi-Fi network that is reasonably cheap to run and now I can monetize it many ways — and customers like Wi-Fi.
We are betting that Wi-Fi will be a way more integral part of tomorrow’s wireless infrastructure. We also believe that mobile operators will dominate Wi-Fi and lead in the build out, deployment and monetization of the infrastructure.
Today’s announcement is about Deutsche Telekom rolling out ‘Wi-Fi Mobilize,’ an exchange and service offering designed to help mobile operators around the world offer a global Wi-Fi service to their subscribers that can offload domestic traffic to Wi-Fi partners in their home country and pull traffic from travellers onto their own Wi-Fi networks. Deutsche Telekom can do this on the strength of their own unique assets coupled with iPass’ 518,000 hotspots around the globe and 320 Wi-Fi relationships in addition to the iPass Open Mobile technology platform that provides worldwide authentication and clearing fabric.
It is an exciting time in our industry. Cheap and cheerful is about to get very professional and we applaud Deutsche Telekom for their far reaching vision and their commitment to start the ball rolling.
Read the Press Release for more information.
With a little help – Cheap and Cheerful Wi-Fi wins the day >>
Monday, February 28th, 2011
Evan Kaplan, CEO
How many? It seems like just a few years ago, all the pundits and futurists were predicting the rise of a single, carry-along computing device; one handy computer to rule them all. It’s not that long ago (post 2001), and yet “the one” device has not arrived and probably won’t.
In this quarter’s Mobile Workforce Report, we found that while most mobile workers think that the day is coming in the next five years (67 percent) when there will be one über mobile device, that same mobile worker is carrying 2.68 mobile devices for work today and despite their claims, we don’t believe that number will be shrinking any time soon.
Instead, we believe there is an emergent natural trinity – the laptop, the tablet, and the smartphone – and mobile employees (and consumers) are already mixing and matching them at will. Smartphones for quick messaging, voice and your handy dandy 3G/4G hotspot, tablets for viewing and reading, and laptops for creating and composing.
Clearly, Apple has the most mature stack but Android is catching up fast, and look for HP and Microsoft to do the same. And we won’t be surprised to see a lot of mixing and matching going on; because even though they are used by mobile workers, the new generation of devices at their core are truly designed for the masses across their work and their personal life. This makes them consumer devices and is rapidly, for better or worse, bringing down the boundaries between work and life.
The actualization of the trinity is facilitated by radical changes in the application world. More web-based applications like Google Docs, Zoho and even Salesforce and new generation of smaller state-aware applications like Evernote, Facebook and Pandora are appearing; all of which leverage the cloud to deliver tremendous functionality without all the infrastructure of traditional IT.
At a fundamental level, we believe that the “stack” is here to stay. We believe the mobile stack – the devices themselves – will remake enterprise IT. Our surveys increasingly indicate that the days of a locked down single laptop provisioned and managed by your employer are ending …quickly. There is a new architecture that will define IT over the next generation it starts with the new unit of end user computing .. the stack. It extends to a new generation of cloud-based applications and demands the need to be connected … almost all the time. The answer to the question – for now isn’t one – its three.
… And look for more from us on this subject in the coming weeks as we explore these trends in a little more depth in our upcoming white paper on the new device-driven computing architectures.
For a look at these trends of the new Mobilocracy and Mobile Stack, read the Q1 2011 Mobile Workforce Report.
The Mobile Stack – a new era of computing >>
Monday, June 21st, 2010
Evan Kaplan, CEO
I can safely predict that for the foreseeable future each month will bring new networks, new devices and the need for more bandwidth. Bleeding edge users, also known as your executive management team, will be the first to introduce the latest consumer device to your network, and you’ll need to support it. At the same time you will continue to have some employees clueless about their mobility costs; check out our vlog on the $27,000 pay per view video.
It is the Wild West out there. Mobility is complicated and this isn’t going to change anytime soon.
In fact, we recently surveyed IT managers at large companies, and what we found is not surprising. 68 percent believe their mobility costs will increase in the next 12 months, 40 percent believe it will outpace inflation and 30 percent believe costs will increase by more than 10 percent annually.
So, how do you take this cost explosion and put what I like to call mobile cost erosion in motion. What I mean by mobile cost erosion is that while innovation will continue to drive mobility costs higher, you can put a strategy in practice to help you erode the base of your mobility budget over time.
At this moment you might be thinking, “Well, exactly how do I do that? The carriers have the power!”
1) Go Digging – You need to find out how much you are spending on mobility. Knowledge is power. The more you know, the easier it is to bargain with your vendors.
2) Jump into the Driver’s Seat – You need to define and own your own mobility service. Why can’t you be your own carrier? Mix and match offerings to meet your needs. Provide your employees with a highly customized service that is all your own.
3) Be the ombudsmen – You need to get a piece of your employees’ mobile device, whether it is a laptop, netbook, tablet or smartphone. I’d suggest controlling the point of connection, with a master connection manager. Doing this will give you insight into your employees’ behavior, but more importantly let you prioritize networks based on cost and bandwidth and apply policies.
4) Be willing to walk away. Protect your infrastructure, and ensure that you can make changes without disrupting the employees’ experience, whether it is the latest mobile device or a carrier’s network. Flexibility to make changes means that you can make them compete for your business for a change.
The Science of Mobile Cost Erosion >>
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Evan Kaplan, CEO
Yesterday, in the lead-up to the iPad launch, I read a great article titled “Apple Tablet: 10 Things we (already) hate about you .” In the article, Sam Gustin didn’t see the tablet as a major revolution over what came before, unlike the iPod and iPhone.
I disagree. The iPad revolutionizes the netbook market; and if I were a netbook maker I’d be very afraid.
In a short period of time, netbooks have become one of the fastest growing computer categories. And, although in January of last year, a chorus of analysts told the market that the netbook had no role in the enterprise… the enterprise market for netbooks has in fact done surprisingly well. Forrester recently reported that 13 percent of IT decision-makers are implementing or planning on implementing some netbooks, and 39 percent are at least interested in them.
If there is any truth to the prediction that 73 percent of enterprise workers will be mobile by 2012 (Forrester again) … I can’t imagine that they’ll all be deploying laptops or have expensive smartphone plans.
The iPad definitely has a play in the enterprise, but I do have a couple of caveats, though. The iPad needs the ability to multi-task, support for the Flash platform (used in many Enterprise cloud-based applications), and built in WiMax.
So here is my top 10 list of the 10 reasons that the yet-to-be-released iPad will revolutionize the Netbook market and redefine mobility. And I’ll go a step further — I’ll tell you why enterprises should care.
- Take a Load Off. Fast paced changes in airline restrictions, combined with airline fees for luggage mean that now, more than ever, road warriors need to travel light. When I came back from Canada earlier this month, I couldn’t even bring my briefcase on board the plane.
- Give a Big Cheer for Wi-Fi. Last week, my CTO wrote a blog on the rebirth of Wi-Fi. The iPad validates the importance of Wi-Fi going forward. The biggest use for the iPad will be Wi-Fi, whether it is on an airplane, in a hotel or at a café.
- Send in the Clouds. More and more enterprise applications are available in the cloud. Many workers will not need a laptop or a traditional operating system to access the applications required to do their job. The browser is the only enterprise application you need…
- A Scaled Down Laptop; a Supersized Smartphone. First look reviews call the screen “amazing.” Some people hate to use their smartphones for anything beyond reading email and making phone calls because the screen is too small, and the keypad is difficult to use. Older workers now make-up 17 percent of the workforce. There is a market for an oversized smartphone … some analysts thought this would be the netbook market. But the Apple iPad will probably change their minds.
- Money. With a $499 starting point, Apple is not only in the ballpark, but in the game to win. If the iPad is anything like most Apple products in the next six months, this price point will come down.
- Gesture-driven Computing. Like the iPhone the device delivers a gesture-driven interface. This opens-up new ways to interface with applications and the types of functionality that the enterprise will be able to offer employees.
- Battery Life. 10 hours is a good start. It means you can stay powered on a transatlantic flight. Long term, I fully expect Apple to increase this further.
- Lighter. At 1.5 lbs, it is half the weight of a netbook. Enough said.
- Easier to Use. Apple has a reputation of designing products that are elegant to use. With strong emphasis on graphics and power, and an on-screen keyboard and an optional attached keyboard, this one won’t be any different.
- Because … It already has a built-in base of great applications, since it will run all existing iPhone and iPod apps including the iPass client. An unlocked 3G model is interesting, and good for enterprises that may already have a 3G strategy in place. And, because it is cool.
Thoughts?
iPad Says Hello, Netbook Says Good-bye >>
