If you've followed this blog for the past year, you'll recognize that the title of this post actually combines some of my favorite topics in the world of enterprise mobility: challenging the whole notion of productivity gains (and the hype brought by vendors) and fixed mobile convergence, which I said earlier this year would be the next killer application for enterprise mobility.
I had the pleasure last week to meet once again with Pejman Roshan, founder and VP of Marketing at Agito Networks, one of my favorite companies in the FMC space. It's not just that I believe Agito has a solid product, but I also enjoy my conversations with Pej. He and I don't always see eye to eye, but it's always a healthy, and respectful debate.
Pej came to talk about the new version of Agito's RoamAnywhere Mobility Router that is being announced today. The new version of the solution has some pretty cool new features. The ones I liked most were (in no particular order) the dual persona functionality that allows you to select which phone number is shown when placing a call, as well as the fact that the software on your mobile can now automatically create a secure channel when making or receiving calls over WiFi (this is GREAT for teleworkers). It's also nice to see that Agito's list of supported devices (Windows Mobile and Symbian) is growing healthily...although I do look forward to when they will support the BlackBerry.
Pej then started talking about the functionality that is built in to the router to provide "Dynamic Least Cost Routing." This is where the debate got interesting. Pej makes a compelling argument that transferring calls to a WiFi network will reduce cellular costs simply by not using as many minutes as before. Makes perfect sense on paper. The problem is that when I was at a previous research firm, I did a study on FMC that showed that cellular costs actually went up after the adoption of FMC solutions. It actually made sense to me because I can see how end users would get so addicted to using ONE device to do both work and personal calls that they would just stop using their desk line. Sure, if the company has WiFi, or the user has access to a WiFi hotspot, they could piggy back onto the WiFi, but there are enough times where the WiFi isn't available where people will keep on making and receiving calls. Heck, I know I would NEVER use the desk line again if my company had a FMC solution in place (Pej did point out however that I am geekier than most people - fair point).
But I digress. The point is, there are very specific scenarios where there is NO QUESTION FMC can help reduce costs (perfect example is the international roaming scenario where you can piggy back onto the hotel WiFi you've already paid for to check your email). However, those scenarios are not THAT common - meaning that only a small (albeit important) segment of the working population will be impacted by that scenario. OK, so scratch the road warrior. What about the campus warrior? OK, there's WiFi everywhere there....so do you need a FMC solution or could you just get away with a traditional Voice over WiFi system (think SpectraLink). Again, I'm just playing devil's advocate here.
Then Pej and I got into the general debate about the "productivity gains" that can be achieved with the adoption of a FMC solution. Ack...Danger Will Robinson, Danger! Again, if you have followed this blog for any period of time, you know how weary I am of ever quantifying the productivity gains from a horizontal enterprise mobility solution. Like I've said countless times, how do you measure the value of push email? But that's OK...I've also said I think that FMC does for voice what the BlackBerry and others have done for email. Push email is actually invaluable....you CAN'T put a value to what it does for the end user and companies in general. FMC has the same challenge and opportunity. It provides a great value to the organization in terms of truly breaking down the four walls of your office (or cube). But again, how do you place a HARD value on that? I guess the biggest barrier to the adoption of FMC solutions will be the empirical evidence of how end-user organizations have been able to derive value (both financial and general) from deploying the solution.
Here's to more case studies that will hopefully accelerate FMC adoption.
