So How Many “Phones” Do You Need?
This issue of eNews is sponsored by Sprint
Turn your desk phone and mobile phone into one with Sprint Mobile Integration.
Reduce costs, minimize complexity and improve worker productivity by integrating your wireline and wireless services. Learn how to effectively achieve this goal.
Respected consulting firm IDC examines the benefits, challenges and the choices available today that will allow you to successfully bridge your wireless and wireline services. Find out how you can simplify your communications strategy, save money and create a transparent environment.
Download this whitepaper now for all of the details.
So How Many “Phones” Do You Need?
Sorell Slaymaker drew some Comments over at No Jitter last week with a blog post in which he tallied up the number of phones he has (and uses), and came up with the rather eye-opening number of 10. Several commenters hurried in to bash Sorell and accuse him of not grasping technology, which I think is a pretty ridiculous thing to suggest. Sorell’s post made it pretty clear that he had very specific use cases for each device, and nowhere did he claim that he was typical of the average knowledge worker, let alone the average civilian. It wasn’t that he had to have so many devices, strictly speaking — it was that he chose to.
But even if you take Sorell and his communications preferences as a bit of an outlier, I still think it’s easier to wind up having more, rather than fewer, devices and “telephone” applications. The same thing happens on the micro scale, to individuals, as happens on the macro scale to enterprises: You get new things for legitimate reasons, but you often don’t get rid of the old things — either because you still use them for a couple of small purposes, or because they’re paid for and not even worth the time and effort to decommission. Or you’re in the midst of a long-term transition involving a group of people, some of whom still rely on the old technology.
It’s one of the core facts about technology over the years: Hardly anything goes away, or at least not completely. People were still using X.25 networks long after the first MPLS services rolled out. There’s still low-speed frame relay out there. These things are artifacts, but they’re still being used in little pockets here and there.
Again, Sorell’s kind of a special case: All 10 of the devices/apps that he lists are current technology; he just uses them in highly specialized ways. Most people don’t feel the need to be that particular, but Sorell’s in the business — he’s interested in learning about the technology, and in experiencing it for what it can do.
How many devices you have may also depend on your enterprise’s own policies. In last week’s Enterprise Connect virtual event, several speakers noted that we’re seeing a trend toward paying users a stipend or per diem of some sort to compensate them for their wireless device usage — but leaving the choice of devices and service plan up to the user him- or herself. If your employer takes this approach, presumably you’d be inclined to make a single choice that works for you as both a personal and a work device. On the other hand, if your employer still insists on providing the device, and standardizes on, say, BlackBerry — whereas you just can’t live without your iPhone — it looks like you’ll be owning two mobile devices, minimum.
Your enterprise may also find itself needing to come up with a softphone policy: Softphones are a great way for international users to save money by avoiding roaming charges, but again, policy may (or may not) dictate what you can use: Are you an OCS shop? Are users allowed to use Skype? If you’re given the former but prefer the latter — or need to connect to someone via softphone who’s not in your enterprise or federated group — you’ll probably wind up with two softphones. (In his post, Sorell counts each such software client as a “phone,” although they may not take up any additional physical space.)
In short, a lot of factors go into determining how many phones the average enterprise knowledge worker has: Personal preference, enterprise policy, the nature of your job and your interactions with others as part of that job. Trying to pare down the number of phones you use might seem like a logical thing to do — but in the end, it might not really be worth the effort.
This Week’s UC Weekly
Putting Video in the UC Context for the Enterprise
Lately, there has been plenty of hype about real-time video calling and conferencing (not to be confused with recorded video for training or documentation). Some suggest that video will be the dominant communications medium for everything we do. Of course, that’s ridiculous. Private and public sector enterprises of all sizes are always seeking the most effective way to do things. Yes, video is certainly a valuable business tool and will very likely grow in application, but it will be important to have some structure behind the decisions of how and where to use it.
Enter Unified Communications (UC), which we at UCStrategies.com define as “communications integrated to optimize business processes.” By defining the top Use Cases within the core business processes for your enterprise, you can determine which mix of communications types is most appropriate for the tasks and processes. The increasing number of UC Case Studies is also a guide in this regard.
The reason for this is pretty obvious: video can be darn expensive.
Posted in Equipment, Phones & User Devices |
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Trackback from your own site.
