Last month, I wrote that “the days of two-phone living may just be numbered” in a post focusing on how the mobile phone is clearly becoming the dominant device in corporate America. Now Gartner is pinning down that number, with a prediction that by 2011, North American enterprises will be supporting more mobile phones than desktop phones. More...

Most of us have gotten so used to coping with two phones that we don’t give much thought to what work life would be without that juggling act. You know how it goes: Check both voice mails several times a day, take the call on your mobile phone even though you’re sitting right there by your deskphone, make sure your business card always shows both your office and mobile numbers, etc. More...

Is solar energy free? Well, if you don’t count the $30,000 or more for the rooftop panels, along with batteries to store the power, a meter to allow selling power back to the utility, and other sundry equipment, I suppose it is. But of course, you do have to factor those things when you analyze the “real” cost of your electricity. More...

One persistent misconception about enterprise fixed-mobile convergence is that if the wireless operator is part of the solution, it is going to mean more minutes of use and higher costs. I ran into this “myth” many times at the recent VoiceCon conference, where I had the opportunity both to speak to an audience and to talk one-on-one with attendees. More...

It’s a beautiful thing when a technology really starts gathering momentum. The transition from “that’s a great idea!” to “how did we live without it?” is when the people behind the technology achieve the satisfaction of vindication. More...

I don’t know about you, but I’ll be glad when VoiceCon arrives. By then the election will be behind us and we can focus on moving forward, leaving behind such distractions as Sarah Palin’s glasses and Barack Obama’s middle name. More...

Fellow blogger Steve Coker addressed an issue in his blog “Mobile Operators – The enabling factor for FMC” that I’d like to take a step further. Not only is FMC of great interest and importance to us, it is a mistake to say that carriers – or at least Sprint – are not focused on deploying FMC solutions because of on-net calling. More...

Here’s a headline I’ll bet you haven’t seen before: Mobile Operators are the Enabling Factor in Making Enterprise FMC a Reality. Maybe it’s because there is so much hype around technology such as WiFi that can operate – with limitations – without carrier involvement. I have to say I’m perplexed, though, when I read statements in the media or on other blogs that imply that wireless operators aren’t interested in FMC.More...

The more I talk with customers, the less I think the term “convergence” has any practical meaning. In today’s market, convergence goes by many names - Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC), Unified Communications (UC), Voice over IP (VoIP), and Wireless WAN, just to name a few. This may sound great coming from your service provider or hardware/software vendors, but the customers I talk to on a regular basis don’t think about convergence in this way at all. To them, convergence is more fundamental – take two or more things that operate independently and merge them effectively. More...

While larger businesses may have the luxury of resources and support to explore and deploy different approaches to Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC), small to medium-sized businesses will drive the market. Quocirca Ltd. in the U.K. offered an interesting report on the needs of small and medium-sized businesses for mobility, which is available at http://www.it-director.com/business/change/content.php?cid=10605 More...