Dale Vile, service director and responsible for primary research at Quocirca, says the report shows that reality is slowly replacing old theory. "Many companies are starting to understand that using fixed phones together with mobiles is no longer the cheapest alternative, because of the way they are actually used," Vile says.
Today, mobiles are not just used as a way of communicating when out and about, but are often used in preference to fixed phones when users are at their desk, as frequently used numbers are stored in the phone and more readily available. And calls are increasingly being made to mobiles rather than the fixed phones of mobile workers because callers know the mobile will always be answered if the person can do so.
For Ericsson, these results support the findings of the company's own analysis of the introduction of the One Phone concept at Ericsson. Mats Dahlin, head of Ericsson's Enterprise unit, says he is happy to see that organizations seem more aware of the benefits of single-device communication: "When all factors are taken into account, including device and network rationalization, common support and the mobile tariff deals struck with operators, our analysis shows overall cost reductions of between 20 and 30 percent," Dahlin says.
These are hard facts decision makers can act on, and they appear to be doing so. Forty percent of the companies interviewed for the Quocirca report are considering, or already moving towards, the single-device approach.
The Quocirca report is based on 150 interviews of IT and communications decision makers from larger European enterprises. The research was also co-sponsored by the European VPN Users' Association (EVUA) - a non-profit end-user organization that promotes global networking solutions for multi-national companies. One of its objectives is to make the telecom market more competitively priced. Members are end-user multinationals with annual telecom costs in excess of EUR 10 million.
Read more on link http://www.quocirca.com/report_ericsson.htm
