Mobile Workforce Report Q2 2011: Page 1: Introduction | Page 2: Redefining Social Boundaries | Page 3: The Right Tools for the Job | Page 4: On the Road with Mobile Workers | Page 5: Conclusion
The Right Tools for the Job
With the increased penetration of the smartphone and the rise in popularity of the tablet, social boundaries are not only being redefined, but the tools and applications that mobile employees use are changing and adapting to the new work modus operandi.
In this section, we explore what applications employees are using on their smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Which are their favorite tools for each application? Surprisingly, note taking applications are popular with mobile workers even on smartphones, and if you have a tablet, your tablet is your preferred device for note taking and video streaming.
You are what you use
Wi-Fi/Internet connectivity applications continued to top the list of what mobile employees are using on their tablets and smartphones. 77 percent said they use Wi-Fi/Internet connectivity applications, and we see this continuing as devices remain inexpensive, network costs continue to climb, and Wi-Fi remains cheap and plentiful.
The practice of using a smartphone as a personal hotspot is still fairly new to mobile employees. Only 31 percent of mobile employees use their smartphone as a personal hotspot. 12 percent don’t use it because their company turned the service off, and 15 percent don’t use it because their smartphone doesn’t support this capability. This will be an interesting trend to watch as more phones come equipped with this capability, cellular networks continue to be bogged down, and data plans become more expensive.
Looking at traditional business applications, the top five native business applications for the smartphone or tablet among mobile employees (other than email and Wi-Fi) are:
The vast majority of mobile employees are comfortable using native business applications on their smartphones and tablets. Only 20 percent of mobile employees do not have any native business applications other than email on their smartphone or tablet. From an IT planning perspective, it is important to note what applications employees are using and how they get the applications on their smartphone and tablets. More than half of mobile workers purchased the business applications from an application store, 34 percent downloaded them from a PC, and 25 percent had them preinstalled on their smartphone.
Figure 21 – How did you get your mobile business applications onto your smartphone?
(Click Image to Enlarge)
In terms of web applications (applications accessed through the browser, but not installed), the top business applications accessed by mobile employees from their smartphone or tablet are:
A third of mobile workers do not access business applications from their browser on their smartphone or tablet. But as more powerful applications move to the cloud, we expect these numbers to increase.
Separately, there has been a lot of discussion about wallet technology. Slightly more than half of all mobile workers would use their smartphone as a wallet. However, those that will not voiced security as their primary concern.
Post-PC Era – The right tools for the job
As employees carry what we call a mobile stack – a combination of laptop, smartphone, and increasingly tablets – we wanted to find out which device they prefer to use for popular applications such as email, video streaming, web conferencing, and note taking. The surprise was how much having a tablet changed their preferences. For the general mobile worker population, the laptop was the most popular choice for email (44 percent), video streaming (58 percent), document editing (87 percent), web conferencing (74 percent), and note taking in meetings (47 percent).
However, add a tablet to the equation and the numbers change significantly. Among mobile employees who own a tablet, 36 percent prefer the smartphone for email; the tablet is the premier device for video streaming (56 percent) and note taking (46 percent); while the laptop remains preferred for document editing (81 percent) and web conferencing (64 percent).
Figure 22 – What is your favorite mobile device (tablet, smartphone, netbook, or laptop) for the following tasks?
(General mobile worker population and tablet owners)
(Click Image to Enlarge)
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Recommendations for IT: While distributing business applications for smartphones and tablets to employees remains a challenge, most employees are comfortable getting their business applications from a variety of sources, including application stores. Also, make sure to support proper password policies and data security even for personal devices. This is a good consideration to help protect the data. |
Mobile Workforce Report Q2 2011: Page 1: Introduction | Page 2: Redefining Social Boundaries | Page 3: The Right Tools for the Job | Page 4: On the Road with Mobile Workers | Page 5: Conclusion
