* IT experiences with mobile messaging
My article last week discussing mobile messaging problems in advance of Osterman Research’s upcoming study on the market for mobile messaging received several very interesting responses. Here’s a sample:
* “The biggest problem is not the technology, but what it forces – one never leaves the office, even if you’re not there physically. We’ve had several instances of important e-mails sent at odd hours with an expected response. When the response didn’t come, there was hell to pay. In the old days, pagers and cell phones were considered a ‘leash’ back to the office. Then, they became really useful (when remote access became easy) and they were liberating – no longer did you have to go into the office to work on something when your pager went off at midnight – a quick VPN session and the problem was solved. But now, it doesn’t matter if you’re eating, sleeping, playing with your kids, in the shower, getting dressed or even in the bathroom! [If you don’t respond to an e-mail] the implication is that you are slacking off and not a team player. Executive users actually come to my IT department with fear in their faces before leaving on vacation [and ask]- ‘is this thing going to work while I’m on vacation?'”
* “At my company, we have BlackBerry devices deployed, but a ‘cost down’ measure resulted in the devices being pulled back from all traveling sales staff – the people who really benefited from them and used them. As well as giving the mobile sales staff faster access to messaging, it always left a good impression on customers when a sales person could use their BlackBerry to send literature to the customer while meeting with them. Senior managers, who retained their units, don’t often visit customers for sales-related business.”
Thank you very much to everyone who provided their comments on the article.
