For the rest of September, we will be concentrating primarily on shifts that we have seen over the past 13 years that we have been authoring this newsletter, beginning with its start as the “Frame Relay Newsletter.”
Over the past few years, one of our recurring themes has been the need for the corporate network to support the mobile devices. This probably started with a minor mention of the ability of cell phones to handle data as well, and certainly became a major issue with the advent of “cellular modems” – evolving to cellular hotspots – that allowed a cost-effective backup for cable and DSL access services.
This evolution continued as we saw the advent of “netbooks” and tablet/pad devices. And we’re still at the tip of the iceberg. These “consumer devices” now must be considered to be a part of the corporate network, and the use of these devices across the WAN affect the design and operation of the network in all facets from security to network performance.
In a report on “Mobility for the SMB” prepared by the Webtorials Editorial/Analyst Division and sponsored by Fonality, slated for release next week, these trends are examined in detail.
In particular this report will show (among many other highlights) that:
• In the next 18 months, the footprint of the mobile network will increase in terms of the percentage that is local-only to network-wide
• In the next 18 months, while the use of all other personal computing devices will slightly decrease, the use of tablet computers will skyrocket
• Support for all applications in a mobile environment will become an extremely high priority since mobile employees currently wastes over 5 hours each week because they don’t have consistent access to corporate resources when out of the office. (That’s one-eighth of a 40-hour work week.)
In response to meeting these challenges, we see cloud-based services as being an integral part of the solution.
You may request a copy of this report in advance if you wish to be notified when it is released.
