Social Collaboration Smartens Up with New Gadgets

Vendors are working on making consumerized technologies fit enterprise requirements and while there is a lot of research being done on ways to incorporate Internet usage into the enterprise, the fact remains that organizations need to find out ways to support the way people expect to live and work. A major challenge here is that consumer technologies are not always appropriate for enterprise environments where the use of technology has to be controlled according to strict usage policies and where security and reliability plays an important role. With the advent of smartphones and smart tablets, the role of social collaboration becomes even more important. However the question is, how can we expect a device-based convergence around a single unified enterprise workspace (smartphones and smart tablets) with a greater reliance on wireless networks?

As per a Cisco survey and report, titled Collaboration Nations it was found that 77% of decision makers from IT are planning to spend on collaboration tools while employees feel that their ability to collaborate is constrained by corporate policies. The survey found out that India and China were the most progressive in adopting the social collaboration technology.

TabletsThe Epicenter of Convergence

The convergence of consumer electronics devices and industries are now coming together at a fast pace, with the tablet form factor serving as a tangible representation of that convergence, since it is part smartphone and part notebook. Says Shailendra Badoni, COO, Datacraft Asia, With the evolution of i-phone apps, the convergence of these applications around the smartphones is a challenge. We have the App-store and Android marketplace together hosting lakhs of downloadable apps, and here the smartphone applications are set to play an important role in the collaboration segment. GPS is one way that will become more important in business wireless, and it will be much more widely deployed.

More than three-fourths of mobile handsets will carry location awareness by the end of 2011. Furthermore, research areas such as channel estimation and propagation models, resource management and QoS (Quality of Service) provision, network design and systems interoperability will have to be tuned up to ensure convergence around smartphones with greater reliance. Low-end consumer notebooks will only marginally suffer from cannibalization. Gartner analysts expect very limited cannibalization on communication devices based on open OS (smartphones). The majority of the impact will be from 7-inch media tablets on high-end smartphones as it will be hard for a user to justify owning both when the differentiation in usage model is very limited. Users buying a 7-inch tablet might opt for a lower priced smartphone with a smaller form factor. In the enterprise space, for the immediate future, the main use of media tablets is as a notebook companion or as a secondary device to take on the road or use for fast access to e-mail, calendaring, interrogating Web applications and information sources, and showing PowerPoint presentations.

Says Badoni, Using a systems integrator or services aggregator will provide a single point from which collaboration can be both launched and coherently managed going forward. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)enabled architectures will become the norm and will allow for greater continuity across channels and for the use of chat, video, and other forms of collaboration.

According to Arun Shetty, head, Avaya Aura Sales & Consulting, India & Saarc, social collaboration is the next big thing. Says Shetty, Imagine the possibilities with your favorite communications toolsHD video, email, IM, social networks, phone, conferencing at your finger tips. Now put all these tools into a single unified enterprise workspace (smart tablet or smartphone) to deliver a seamless communications experience that is easy to use, convenient and ready in real time to help you focus on the task at hand.

According to research and technology company, iSuppli, mobile devices with significantly greater computing power are proving to be the long awaited driver of convergence of consumer, computer, and communications services. Devices such as Apple iPad and Galaxy Tablets will have massive implications for the technology world which will spur competition not only among various types of products but also among industries. The implications of the convergence in consumer electronics span well beyond tablets: the mobile operating system is also growing in importance and is moving into devices that previously did not have a mobile OS, such as set-top boxes and MP3 players. In terms of their impact on the computing market the tablet segment could be much bigger in 2012 as the devices take on the content creation capabilities now offered by notebook and netbook PCs.

Says Shetty, By using one desktop device for all your collaboration needs, you will streamline your application into unique personal workflows, avoiding the frustration of barriers between technologies. Collaboration on the move is possible as this device will support Wi-Fi for enterprise and hot spot roaming and 3G/4G capability.

Mobile devices have become small computers, with expanded computing, memory and storage capabilities, as well as rich operating systems and application environments. Also, most notebooks now ship with embedded wireless capabilities, such as Wi-Fi, bluetooth, 3G or 3.5G connectivity. Many desktop PCs can be easily equipped with wireless external peripherals. New hybrid devices that fit in between these categories are also reaching the market: Ultra-mobile PCs (such as OQO Model O2, Samsung Q1 and HTC Shift) or high-featured PDAs (such as HTC Athena). The functionality and capability boundaries between mobile devices and notebooks are progressively blurring.

On Cloud Nine

Collaboration is slowly moving to the cloud and Gartner analysts have predicted a steep growth for sales of premises and cloud-based social networking services. According to Gartner, organizations will deploy hybrid models where some services live on-premises and some are in the cloud. Interestingly, the market will also consolidate around 2 major companiesMicrosoft and Research in Motion (RIM), the makers of Blackberry. As per a report the two companies will jointly own 80% of enterprise wireless email software market. 2011 will be a crucial year for technology companies to get their cloud strategies in place. So-called public cloudsshared by a wide range of users, whether consumers or companieswill be the dominant technology platform for the next 20 years.

Barriers to Convergence

Users and many IT managers implicitly expect the management and security approaches for mobile devices and PCs to align. For this to become feasible, a number of critical obstacles need to be overcome such as device diversity since mobile devices are highly fragmented, extra dependencies such as architectural dependencies and carrier customization for mobile devices vary, granularity of control, and the maturity of the market.

Overcoming the barriers to adopting a common approach to mobile computing will require market evolution and maturity. In the long term, carrier dependencies are likely to erode, as users demand more interoperability. Consolidation in the mobile device management market and initiatives from traditional PC management vendors to support mobility are likely to result in a market characterized by fewer, more-broadly applicable tools.

Mobile OSThe Next Wave

While business processes are technologically enabled, many of the essential technologies that support collaboration are not new. Collaboration technology is anything that contributes to the process of connecting people to the content. An interesting way to collaborate is to standardize communications technologies on Internet protocols, such as session initiation protocol (SIP). SIP-enabled architectures will become the norm and will allow for greater continuity across channels and for the use of chat, video, and other forms of collaboration.

In 2010, the collaboration battle became more fierce with many vendors introducing integrated solutions that pull together suites for finding and sharing information, extend and enhance shared knowledge, and connect with people more easily than with email and disjointed point solutions. Because collaboration is the only business activity that every employee engages in every day, large vendors such as IBM, Cisco, Google and Microsoft, as well as smaller players will continue to add more capabilities to expand their market footprints. Mobile operating systems will also proliferate because of their range of benefits to technology providers and users. These OS provide a framework for consumers to cheaply and effortlessly create custom use cases for devices by using apps that exceed the utility of an Internet browser alone. For developers, mobile OS will allow the creation and monetization of apps. Mobile OS enable interconnectivity between connected devices and thus generate even more new use cases.

With more capabilities coming out from the device based convergence through smartphones and smart tablets, and cloud becoming an interesting model, the competition will get tougher. IDC predicts that in 2011, computings third major technology wave will become mainstream, when computers held in ones handsmartphones and tabletsreally take over and start putting personal computers in the rear-view mirror. Apples iPad will remain the leader, but lower-cost tablets will begin making inroads, especially as demand for tablets really takes off in emerging markets.

PC Suraj
surajp@cybermedia.co.in