Mobile industry underestimating corporate demand

The mobile industry is underestimating corporate demand for new devices and services, according to a new report from Forrester Research.

The industry is failing to meet the demand from employees to fund their own corporate mobile purchases, which will include nearly half of all corporate employees by 2015.

"Vendors in the mobility ecosystem are dramatically underestimating the demand for mobility solutions in the corporate arena," said Michele Pelino, a principal analyst at Forrester, in a blog post.

"Why? Because they are missing demand that will come from two emerging segments of employees: 'mobile wannabes' and 'mobile mavericks'."

Mobile wannabes are usually younger staff who have grown up with mobile phones, and who are not issued mobile devices at work but want to use them anyway. They currently account for 16 per cent of employees, but this figure will nearly double by 2015.

Mobile mavericks are staff who already get IT department support as mobile workers but do not like the technology they are issued and buy their own.

This group will double in size to 12 per cent of the workforce by 2015, and is likely to drive demand for cutting-edge devices.

The report is based on the Forrsights Workforce Employee Survey Q3 2010, which questioned 5,500 employees in Canada, France, Germany, the UK and the US.