Mobile working

Mobile working has made the transition from vague aspiration to the mainstream in a very short space of time. So Computing's survey, in association with O2, offers an important snapshot of how far we have come.

What is clear is that the hype is becoming reality. The reason is not a triumph of the case for work-life balance, although fear of regulation forcing more flexible working is becoming a driver. More realistically, it is because a rapidly-changing market has created very attractive buying conditions.

The technology has advanced at an astonishing pace. Better chips, for example, have added real muscle to better-built, lighter, Wi-Fi enabled laptops, and it's been no surprise to see the market grow 30 per cent over the past year.

Tablet PCs promise even greater convenience on the move, and ever-improving PDAs now offer robust versions of key desktop software. And we are beginning to understand the potential of smartphones.

The marrying of voice and data in a format with which most people feel comfortable offers exciting new business opportunities.

All this new power has coincided with plummeting prices. Once the big question for business was 'why?' Now that prices are so low, many are asking 'why not?'

The biggest advantages of mobile data are the improvement of flexible working practices, in the case of wireless networks and notebooks PCs, and better access to email, in the case of PDAs and handhelds.

Overwhelmingly, IT managers who rolled out these systems believed they had been successful. But there is evidence that few really think strategically about mobile working.

IT managers see the biggest barriers to investment in a mobile strategy as uncertainty about the return on investment and security. The security questions will take time to be answered, but the ROI argument may take even longer.

Slowly, there is a caseload building of examples of companies that have seen significant ROI or improved corporate performance from the implementation of mobile technology.

In the end, good example and word of mouth will do the rest. Mobile data is a fact of life - it's just not seen yet as a matter of life and death.