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Archive for the ‘Mobile Worker’ Category

Gartner predicts more IT support for BYOD

Thursday, November 29th, 2012 Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor

At the recent Gartner Symposium, Gartner shared many statistics and trends concerning increased IT-support for BYOD.

Computer Weekly reported that IT departments will be expanding their budget to support BYOD. “Gartner has recommended that CIOs embrace BYOD by opening up corporate networks and supporting non-Windows devices like tablets and smartphones.”

CIOs need to design their business around mobile. By 2016, two-thirds of workforce will own a smartphone. Other statistics and trends that were shared:

Budgets:

IT budgets will grow 1.4% driven by the take-up of mobile technology like smartphones and tablet computers.

Gartner recommends IT directors and CIOs aim to allocate 50% of their budget to new projections like BYOD.

Businesses will need to look at how they share the cost of device ownership with employees who bring in their own devices.

Security and Support:

Increasing penetration of Android & iOS-devices in the enterprise will continue to pose challenges for the IT department and the CIO to ensure that security and manageability remain a priority.

Gartner has recommended that CIOs embrace BYOD by opening up corporate networks and supporting non-Windows devices like tablets and smartphones.

Gartner has recommended that CIOs embrace BYOD by opening up corporate networks and supporting non-Windows devices like tablets and smartphones.

Who owns what?

Gartner has recommended that CIOs embrace BYOD by opening up corporate networks and supporting non-Windows devices like tablets and smartphones.

Asset ownership will change…by 2018, Gartner predicts 70% of mobile workers will use hybrid/tablet devices.

Gartner predicts that half of non PC devices by 2016 will be purchased by employees and by 2020 half of all devices will be owned by employees.

By 2016, two-thirds of the mobile workforce will own a smartphone, and 40 percent of the workforce will be mobile.

Gartner estimates that tablets will be the key accelerator to mobility with purchases of tablets by businesses reaching 13 million units in 2012 and more than tripling, reaching 53 million units, by 2016.

Smartphones have become an integral part of employees lives and estimates that 56 percent of smartphones purchased by businesses in North America and Europe will be Android devices in 2016, up from 34 percent in 2012 and virtually no penetration in 2010.

Gartner anticipates more interest to come from the business market than the consumer market and as such Windows 8 will take third place in the tablet market behind Apple and Android by 2016.

More predictions in BizTechReports >>

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Cyber Monday: Mobile shopping or shopping for mobile

Monday, November 26th, 2012 Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor

Cyber Monday is upon us. Not only are shoppers looking for mobile deals, but they are out in force shopping via mobile devices.

According to IBM’s Digital Analytics Benchmark in Cyber Monday Sales Are Already Up 24 Percent; iPhone Driving Most Traffic To Retail Sites, there is a 24.1 percent jump in online sales from for this same time period over Cyber Monday 2011. Also:

“Mobile shopping is also performing well with the current number of consumers using a mobile device to visit a retailer’s site at 22.4 percent. The number of consumers using their mobile device to make a purchase is at 12 percent.

By device, the iPhone is driving more retail shopping than any other device with traffic reaching 8.7 percent versus 7.2 percent and 6.3 percent for iPad and Android respectively. Shoppers referred from Social Networks have generated .2 percent of all online sales on Cyber Monday.”

Smartphone: THE Device for Mobile Workers [infographic]

Thursday, November 15th, 2012 Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor

Our Q4 Mobile Workforce Report infographic is about the Smartphone; the king of mobile devices!

Although not replacing the laptop and tablet (ruling happily along-side), this device is second only to your wallet and keys. How many of you have decided maybe you can go without your wallet this time, but definitely not your phone?

Go to our Infographic page >>

Download the Mobile Workforce Report >>

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iPass Q4 Mobile Workforce Report

Wednesday, November 14th, 2012 Chris Witeck, Director Product Marketing

Today iPass released our Q4 2012 Mobile Workforce Report. In this report we interviewed almost 1,700 mobile workers across the globe to learn more about the mobile devices they use, how they use them for work and personal reasons and the impact that mobility has on their lives.

The focus of this quarter’s report is just how important smartphones have become to mobile workers. For those of us who have become attached to our smartphones, we can definitely empathize with that. Some of the items from this quarter’s report that really interested me is taking a look at what’s changed this year from when we asked similar questions last year. For example, take a look what smartphone mobile workers currently use:

What really grabs attention is the jump of Android-based smartphones from 2011 to 2012. While we’ve heard for a while that more Android smartphones are activated than iPhones, that has been more in the consumer space. In this quarter’s Mobile Workforce Report, we are definitely seeing evidence of Android picking up steam with the Enterprise mobile workers as well. iPhones are also picking up share — so what device is losing favor?

We can see here that BlackBerry devices lost share amongst mobile workers from 2011 to 2012, adding to this we definitely see mobile workers not looking to BlackBerry in 2013. When we asked mobile workers if they were planning to upgrade their smartphone in 2013:

59% of mobile workers said they are planning on upgrading their smartphone in 2013

Of those mobile workers:

41% were planning on upgrading to an iPhone 5

22% to an Android device

8% to a Microsoft Windows Phone

And only 5% to a BlackBerry device

Another really interesting data point is the impact of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) with smartphones. Last year we saw that 58% of Enterprises provided their mobile workers with an IT-managed smartphone. This year we saw that fall to 49% of mobile workers saying they had an IT-managed smartphone (33% said that they have an IT-managed device and an additional 16% said they have both an IT-managed device and a personal device), meaning that BYOD is definitely getting a foothold when it comes to smartphones, as more and more mobile workers are bringing in their own device.

There is a lot more data in this quarter’s Mobile Workforce Report, so I encourage everyone to check it out.

The last point I’ll leave everyone with is a warning to the Enterprise out there. When we asked mobile workers what their biggest barrier to working while mobile, the top response with 50% of responses was “Simple access to Wi-Fi when I’m out of the office”. However, when we asked these same workers what matters most when choosing a mobile network — ‘Speed’ and ‘Availability of Connection’ were at the top of the list and ‘Cost’ was at the bottom.

What that tells us is that mobile workers value that Wi-Fi connection while mobile, but cost is not their concern. I’ve always said that when a mobile worker is faced with multiple choices for connectivity they will go with whatever is easiest and most convenient, regardless of the cost. That is definitely reflected with what we are seeing with the data. The lesson here- to keep your mobile workers productive make sure they have convenient access to Wi-Fi, but keep an eye on that cost.

To learn more about how you can do that- be sure to check out iPass Open Mobile.

Get this quarter’s Mobile Workforce Report

Read the press release >>

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Work-Life blend (workshifting) in Forbes

Monday, October 22nd, 2012 Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor

In Forbes and HBR.org, Ron Ashkenas, writes about Work-Life Blend, in the article: Forget Work-Life Balance: It’s Time for Work-Life Blend.

He writes:

“The reality for many of us these days is that our professional lives bleed into our personal lives. The boundaries are increasingly permeable and movable. We check our emails in the evenings and weekends. We delay or miss family events because we can’t leave the office. And when we do, we take our communications devices with us so that we can stay connected to work.

Focusing on work-life “integration” instead of work-life “balance” has at least a couple of implications: First (and the one that I like the most) is that we can stop feeling guilty about scheduling calls during our vacations or checking our emails at night; and by the same token not feel guilty about talking with our spouses, friends, and family members during work time.”

Last year, our Mobile Workforce Report discussed this trend, which we call “workshifting.” In a blog by our CEO called “Workshifting – Yes, No or Tolerated“, Evan Kaplan notes: “In the iPass Mobile Workforce Report we found that although 95 percent stated their employers encouraged or tolerated workshifting—40 percent [of mobile workers] would like to have an even more flexible work environment.”

Kaplan continues: “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.”

Read the Forbes article here >>

Read the iPass Mobile Workforce Report on workshifting >>

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