Virtual Office Resource

A new report by AccessDirect claims that small businesses are making the desk phone a business tool of the past. The small business provider of virtual phone systems, including those that use solutions like Voice over LTE (News - Alert) (VoLTE) claims that while there are fewer and fewer desk phones to be found in small business headquarters, the need for voicemail is still alive and well.

In order to come to these conclusions, AccessDirect surveyed more than 100 small businesses that had 10 employees or less in North America. From that survey, the company found that 42 percent of those who responded use mobile phones as the primary business phones. Considering that desk phones are now used primarily by about 49 percent of small businesses, the number of people who have gone mobile is almost split down the middle.

When looking at the age of people who are using primarily desk phones, it becomes more apparent than ever that mobile phones will eventually become the choice for small businesses. A whopping 61 percent of small business responders who are in the 45-50 year old bracket said they would like to keep their desk phones as their primary phones. Only 38 percent of people who responded to the survey and are between 30 and 44 said they preferred a desk phone.

"Fortune 500 funded reports on the future of telephony focus on mega trends and large enterprise needs, they don't reveal much about the day-day needs of small business, so we designed a survey that would speak to the future of telecommunications for small businesses like the ones we serve.” John Kinskey, the President and Founder of AccessDirect said in a release accompanying the survey.

It seems likely that as technologies like VoLTE get ever more popular, these ultra small companies are going to find it that much easier to transition to mobile phones as the primary phone.