Tools for the Mobile Worker: Pre-Show CTIA

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 John Gallagher, Sr. Public Relations Manager

CTIA starts today in San Francisco. The behemoth of a show has scaled down this year, but given the buzz surrounding many of the outside events, it would be easy to be mistaken. While Microsoft is notably absent (at least they will be making a big splash next week in New York, with the unveiling of the Windows Phone 7 operating system), the pre-show buzz here is great.

There are many networking events outside of the show, which illustrates that while tradeshows may have declined in attendance numbers, people are still doing business around these events. As one analyst, Philippe Winthrop, said yesterday, “Businesses don’t sell to businesses, it’s people who sell to people.” No matter how mobile and remote we may be, face-to-face is still an important part of business.

Winthrop is founder of the Enterprise Mobility Foundation (and in full disclosure iPass is a founding supporter) and over a 100 people attended his first two sessions of his Enterprise Mobility Boot Camp. (Twitter #CTIAEMBC)

According to Winthrop, one in three devices entering the corporate environment is employee-owned and he espoused the importance of enterprises taking a holistic mobility strategy that includes employee-owned devices. Importantly, he added, this must include business and IT decision-makers working hand-in-hand, as technical issues have the ability to impact both the top and bottom line of an organization.

Outside of the conference rooms, I couldn’t help but notice the CTIA ‘Hot for the Holidays’ award contenders. While I’ve heard the mantra “Modern technology owes ecology an apology,” this old bicycle mobile phone charging technology labeled the “fitness buff” is certainly a lot more ecologically friendly. At first I thought it was a Nokia joke but frankly, I think it’s a great idea for cycling mobile workers. $50 and it’s yours for the dynamo and lead…bicycle and cell phone sadly not included.