Virtual Office Resource

As little as 10 years ago, the idea of the mobile enterprise was still largely unheard of. Sure, there were telecommuters, but these were often “other people” at “other companies,” heard of but seldom actually seen. With the rise of cloud technology, the mobile workforce got started in earnest, able to access information and keep connected like never before. Today, the mobile enterprise technology is driving fresh change, and businesses—and investors—alike are eager to keep up.

With IDC (News - Alert) recently reporting that smartphones and tablets outsold PCs by 2.5 to one last year, and global smartphone users now numbering 4.5 billion—around three out of four people on Earth—that means some big changes to the way content is delivered and information accessed. A PricewaterhouseCoopers (News - Alert) study noted that smartphone traffic is currently double that of PCs, routers and tablets together, a number expected to reach 10 times its current level just by 2019.

More mobile users and lots more mobile traffic mean that businesses need to reconsider the entire enterprise for mobile. Thus many CEOs are planning to shift IT budgets to accommodate the growth of mobile; 81 percent of those in the PricewaterhouseCoopers study plan to do just that.

Given that the budget shifts are just starting up, we may see a large part of 2016 go by without a lot of development in mobile. At least, not much more development than we would normally see, which is a lot by itself. With a lot of major corporate IT budgets going into this sector, however, it's likely to engender a lot of new growth. An Emergence Capital study pointed out two key features of the mobile landscape to come: one, non-desk workers represent about 80 percent of the global workforce as it sits, so mobile developments will have plenty of opportunity to come. Two, mobile enterprise is projected to represent a $100 billion annual market just in terms of revenue.

The writing is on the wall; both investors and businesses alike know that there's about to be quite a bit of investment in mobile enterprise systems. With so much investment, there must be plenty of demand; no one invests in things that aren't either needed or wanted for some reason. With demand in place to the degree that investments are already being prepared, it's a great time for small businesses to develop game-changing mobile enterprise tools and offer these up to major corporations eager to put the latest in mobile enterprise to work.

Mobile enterprise tools have already changed a lot of how we live and work, and with the sheer amount of investment going into this sector, will likely yield a lot more change before it's all over. It's likely going to be a great day coming for mobile enterprise, one that brings a lot of benefit with it.