Taking the myth out of mobility

Mobility has become one of those big buzzwords that each person interprets in a different way. One company’s interpretation will vary greatly from another, and with the way technology is changing, it is no wonder this buzzword has taken on a life of its own. Recently Marc Skinner, PLM Director at Media5 Corporation, sat down to discuss the Mobility craze, the market conditions, and future trends.

Why has the Mobility become so complex?
MS: Up until recently telecommunications focused from the inside out, that is, focusing on the office environment and trying to give them a global reach. However, the reality now is that the work environment has changed, more and more employees are working remotely from their homes, hotels, branch offices, on the train, in airports or any one of a countless different scenarios and it is the telecommunications industry that needed to catch up. The concept of Mobility is actually quite simple; it is thinking globally, it is the ability for an employee or anyone to stay in contact wherever they are in the world using whatever the device and access method is available to them. By that I mean that an employee can get in touch with his office and colleagues using either a smartphone, laptop, netbook or any PC with web access. What gets complicated is all of these different options that they are faced with in order to become mobile.

Speaking of options, what are some of the different options facing the mobile worker?
MS: When we develop Media5Boss-Mobility solutions portfolio at Media5 Corporation, we look at the needs that the Mobile workforce has, and try to answer these.

Productivity and Efficiency Increase
When a worker is working either from home or is travelling, he needs to be reachable the same exact way as if he were at the office. He needs to get access to the same level of communications functionality locally and remotely.

Cost Savings
Of primary concern to most companies, is "How much will this cost?" and "Will it pay off?" one of the key elements to any Mobile solution is the ability to use the least costly network available. For our PBX-Extension-to-Mobile solution, this means using VoIP over Wi-Fi when available with dual-mode smartphones.

Studies indicate that between 40% to 80% of mobile voice calls are made in an area where Wi-Fi is accessible (Office and Home), so the cost savings can be considerable.

Our mobility solutions portfolio also brings cutting edge security and high interoperability mobile SIP client applications such as the one we just released for the iPhone. Apple, with its iPhone, has shaken up the mobile industry and Nokia, Google, RIM, Microsoft and a few others are working hard to win their piece of the cake. They all are putting in place an entire ecosystem to ease the development and the deployment of new and innovative mobile applications while launching powerful and open platforms.

This is representing a great opportunity for Media5 and this is also another reason why we have worked, as part of the mobility solutions portfolio, on different and comprehensive solutions to cover the widest range of mobile platforms available today and in the future. This is important because we want to let the users have the choice of their mobility solutions. This has been possible because we are using our award-winning core technology: the M5T SIP Client Engine. This SDK takes care of all the portability challenges brought by each of the mobile OS and platform such as Darwin OS (iPhone), Symbian-S60 (Nokia and Samsung), Android (HTC G1 and Magic), Windows Mobile (HTC). Media5 applications developers can then focus their effort on the differentiated features that will put the Media5-Boss Mobility portfolio faster to the market.

Comfort
The user must also feel familiar and comfortable with the mobile solution; there is nothing worse for a mobile worker than being told that there is a two week learning curve. We took that The Mobile solution should be a natural extension of their existing enterprise PBX.

Security
Especially for the Legal-Justice and Finance vertical markets for example where security is so important that the Mobility solutions need to be secure and support certain functionalities such as SIP over TLS for secure signalling towards the mobile user application, as well as SRTP support for secure voice & other medias transmission. The key exchange mechanism is also very important to ensure a full and end-to-end secure solution. At Media5 we support different open standard mechanisms such as SDES, MIKEY or ZRTP to better fit the exact needs of the final customers.

Convenience / Presence
Finally, convenience is also another very important aspect to consider for the Mobile worker. To be able to use multiple mobile platforms, with one business number, one contact list, one voicemail box and Instant Messaging, Presence-aware applications enable the worker to stay in contact wherever he is in the world with the exact same tools and information as if he was sitting at his desk.

It seems that service providers are lagging somewhat behind everyone else in terms of adaption. What can they do to reach this market?
MS: With significant call volumes moving away from traditional mobile operators, there is the opportunity for Carriers and Mobile Operators to generate additional revenues especially in the small, medium and branch offices market segments, in these changing market conditions, by bringing about new opportunities for higher value applications and  services including: 

• PBX-Extension-to-Mobile with or without dual-mode phones.
• Mobile SIP Clients for iPhone, Nokia E and N series, Android Google phone.
• Secure Mobile Communications Solutions.
• Retain and capture customers offering both GSM and SIP Services.
• Opportunity to sell more data on the road: through special agreement for lower data rate and pre-configured hot spot at lower rate.
• Providing more components to the core of the enterprise = lower churn rate.
• Generate Enterprise revenues with installation and services.

Telecommunications tend to have flavours of the month – is Mobility the latest Flavour of the Month or does it have legs?
MS: Mobility is definitely not a trend, it will continue to evolve and adapt because the work environment has changed.

To learn more about Mobility in the work force and about the Media5 line of Mobile Solutions please visit www.media5corp.com or info@media5corp.com.