Blackberry Mobility Featured Article

 iPass Inc., a provider of enterprise mobility services, has published its quarterly “Mobile Workforce Report.”

Included in the report is a mobile employee survey which indicated the various enterprise mobility trends.

For starters, mobile devices continue to create an on-demand workforce with the majority of respondents -- 53.6 percent -- not really disconnecting from technology. Among 46.4 percent of mobile employees who occasionally disconnect, the reasons were mostly situational (e.g., in a location with poor connectivity). When on vacation, 94 percent of mobile employees connect to the Internet, with majority connecting for work.

What’s more, mobile workers are used to carrying multiple mobile devices with close to 97 percent of mobile employees carrying two or more mobile devices, and almost 50 percent carrying three or more.

Another finding: Mobile workers use their mobile devices for both work and personal reasons while 91 percent users of consumer devices like the iPad and tablet PC use their devices to plan or use it for work. The line between consumer and business applications has also blurred. Most respondents use email, calendar, and text messaging and browsing for both work and personal on their smartphones. The only exception is social media, which is rarely accessed for work.

Also, there is a resurgence of WiFi (News - Alert) access among smartphone users. While the majority of smartphone users are choosing WiFi to connect, the primary reason stated (31.8 percent) is because it is faster than 3G.

Evan Kaplan, CEO of iPass (News - Alert), said that a mobile workforce offers significant benefits to enterprises, even if those benefits are not without costs. He added that enterprises need services to manage the proliferation of devices, measure mobile workforce productivity, and structure liability, mitigate risk, ensure access, and contain costs.

The iPass Mobile Workforce Report is published quarterly and is based on two sources: First, more than 1,100 survey responses from mobile enterprise employees between July 12 and July 30, 2010 (54 percent from North America, 30 percent from Europe and 10 percent from Asia Pac).

And second, enterprise mobile broadband usage data collected by iPass across its user base from April 1 through June 30, 2010.