Bring Your Own Device, Voice Virtualisation Key Trends

Recent surveys by Frost & Sullivan and Mitel point to most enterprises increasing their dependence on mobile phones, and moving to a "bring your own device" strategy.

The future mobile phones will dominate

In the future mobile phones will dominate, with businesses moving to a 'bring your own device' strategy and voice virtualisation will take on more importance in business' networks according to survey results(1) taken by Mitel. These results furthermore align with the company's Mitel Freedom architecture that was announced late last year.

- 53 percent of respondents felt that, henceforth, mobile phones will become the dominant communication device in the workplace. These same responders as well stated that their organisations will move to a 'bring your own device' strategy hereafter.

The greatest level of importance

- 90 percent of respondents said that virtualisation will take on greater importance in their network in 2011 with 34 percent of these saying that voice virtualisation will take on the greatest level of importance. Cloud virtualisation and desktop virtualisation followed in priority at 31 and 25 percent respectively.

- 74 percent of respondents believed they could achieve a stronger ROI using a best-of-breed network approach versus a single vendor.

"These survey results demonstrate that the Mitel Freedom architecture is in direct correlation with addressing the communications needs of clients," said Stephen Beamish, vice-president of marketing and business development for Mitel. "With Mitel Freedom, organisations have the flexibility to break free from the 'walled garden' vendor model and design a communications network based on best-in-class technologies. It as well allows organizations to deliver a tailored, in-office experience to all employees, extending UC features to any device, enabling the 'bring your own device' approach which we believe will become more prevalent henceforth."

The Mitel survey findings

Frost & Sullivan's recently released survey(2) on mobility usage supports the Mitel survey findings. It showed that 49 percent of respondents identify mobile phones as primary endpoints used for business communications.

"Organisations are driving the use of mobile unified communications applications to help reduce cost, enhance mobile worker productivity, enable work/life balance, provide better customer service, reduce travel, and increase collaboration across distributed teams," said Elka Popova, North American program director, unified communications & collaboration, Frost & Sullivan. "Survey participants indicated that in 2011 they intend to increase their spending across a broad set of communications and collaboration technologies, including mobile devices and applications. Mitel's Freedom architecture provides flexible, easy-to-manage solutions to address the trend toward increased mobile integration."

Frost & Sullivan furthermore reported that more than 90 percent of large and 75 percent of small/mid-sized companies would describe their communications infrastructure as multi-vendor as opposed to end-to-end single vendor. According to the survey, this trend will continue over the straightway 24 months with the majority of businesses shifting to more tightly integrated multi-vendor environments.

"We need the freedom to let people work in ways that are most effective for them, and to stay in touch with clients no matter what we're doing or where we are," said Amit Mantri, director of network operations for Intrasphere Technologies, a life sciences consulting firm. "This is what Mitel brings to the table. We're very excited about our future with Mitel. With all of the benefits we get, the possibilities for the future seem endless."