* Survey reveals mobile messaging trends in midsize and large businesses
We have just completed a major survey of mobile messaging in midsized and large organizations. Here’s some of what we found:
* 15% of the corporate workforce in midsized and large organizations in North America uses employer-supplied mobile devices. However, decision-makers anticipate that they’ll see in excess of 40% growth in the number of employees using these devices in 2008 and more than 30% growth in 2009.
* In terms of the devices supported by IT, BlackBerry devices clearly dominate, although Windows Mobile device support will be increasing over the next 12 months. Symbian support is also increasing, while Palm support will drop very slightly.
* The integration of presence into mobile devices will increase significantly over the next 12 months: while only 19% of organizations today report that presence integration with mobile devices is a priority or very high priority today, that figure will more than double a year from now.
* What devices are users asking for? We asked messaging decision makers “On a scale of 1 to 5, how much demand is there among your mobile users for the following devices, where 1 is ‘no demand at all’ and 5 is ‘users are clamoring for this device’”? We found that BlackBerry devices are being sought significantly more than any other device, although significant proportions of users are also asking for Windows Mobile devices. Interestingly, of the four mobile devices we asked about (BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm Treo and Apple iPhone), the iPhone was last on the list.
Clearly, mobile messaging will have a major impact on corporate decision-making over the next 24 months, particularly in the context of archiving content, the security of the devices and the data they contain and the use of external services employed to manage mobile devices.
