Mobile Slowly Starting to Reshape Business IT and Communications Spending
May 31, 2012
By: Gary Kim
In 2009, globally, there were about 4.5 mobile “lines” in service for every fixed voice line, and the ratio doubtlessly has increased in mobile’s favor since then. One would expect the mobility trend to affect business spending and priorities as well, but that does appear to be the case.
Some 59 percent of global respondents to a Symantec (News - Alert) study on business use of mobile devices now commonly make line-of-business applications accessible from mobile devices. As you might guess, those apps range from e-mail, browsers, contact apps, calendars and instant messaging.
Respondents also said project management, sales force automation, social media and other line of business apps were commonly used.
Also, 71 percent of businesses now are looking at creating an enterprise version of a mobile app store to support all those apps.
Symantec surveyed 6,275 businesses, with the number of employees ranging from five to more than 5,000, and found that 48 percent see mobile computing as somewhat to extremelychallenging, and it is requiring effort to manage. In fact, 31 percent of IT staff is involved, in some way, with mobile computing.
Separately, Vanson Bourne polled 1,000 IT and business decision makers about their mobility spending and plans. The poll found that organizations with 100 to 500 employees have an average of $344,000 invested in mobility projects at the present time, with that figure rising to $538,000 among organizations with more than 500 employees.
The average current investment in mobile for businesses of all shapes and sizes is $422,000, though those figures likely are distorted by the higher enterprise spending, compared to small business efforts.
Only five percent of U.K. and U.S. businesses are not currently investing in mobility projects, the survey found.
Edited by Brooke Neuman
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