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July 2009 | Volume 12 / Number 7
Editorial Series Sponsorship

Media5: Taking the Myth out of Mobility

By: Richard “Zippy” Grigonis

Mobility has become one of those buzzwords that each person interprets in a different way. And with the way technology is changing, it is no wonder this buzzword has taken on a life of its own. This month I sat down with Marc Skinner, PLM Director at Media5 Corporation (News - Alert) (www.media5corp.com) to discuss the Mobility craze, the market conditions, and future trends.

RG: Why has the Mobility become so complex?

MS: Until recently telecommunications focused from the inside out, that is, focusing on the office environment trying to give it a global reach. However, the reality is that the work environment has changed; more employees are working remotely from their homes, hotels, branch offices, in the train, in airports or in many other scenarios; our industry needed to catch up. Our concept of Mobility is actually quite simple; it is thinking globally, it is the ability for employees to stay in contact wherever they are in the world using whatever the device and access methods are available to them. It’s complicated though, given the variety of different options with which they are faced in order to become mobile.




RG: What are some of the different options facing the mobile worker?

MS: When we developed the Media5Boss-Mobility solutions portfolio, we looked at the needs that the Mobile workforce has, and tried to respond to them.

Productivity and Efficiency Increase. When a worker is outside the office, he needs to be reachable in the same way as if he were at the office. He needs to get access to the same levels of communications functionality both locally and remotely.

Cost Savings. A primary concern to most companies is “How much will this cost?” and “Will it pay off?” A key element to any Mobile solution is the ability to use the least costly network available. For our PBX (News - Alert) Extension-to-Mobile solution, this means using VoIP over WiFi when available with dual-mode Smartphone’s. Studies indicate that 40 to 80 percent of mobile voice calls are made where WiFi (News - Alert) is accessible (office and home), so the cost savings can be considerable.

Our Mobility portfolio also brings cutting-edge security and high interoperability mobile SIP client applications, such as the one we just released for the iPhone. Apple has shaken up the mobile industry and Nokia, Google (News - Alert), RIM, Microsoft and others are working hard to win their share of this market. All are putting in place a full ecosystem to ease the development and the deployment of new mobile applications while launching powerful and open platforms.

With this in mind, we, at Media5, have worked on different, comprehensive solutions to cover the widest range of mobile platforms available, giving the user a wide choice of mobility solutions. By using our award-winning core technology the M5T SIP Client Engine, this powerful SDK takes care of all the portability challenges by each of the mobile OS and platforms.

Comfort. The user must also feel familiar and comfortable with the mobile solution; there is nothing worse for a mobile worker than being told that there is a two week learning curve. The Mobile solution should be a natural extension of their existing enterprise PBX.

Security. In key vertical markets, such as Legal and Financial, solutions need to be secure. Key elements should include functionalities such as SIP over TLS for secure signalling towards the mobile user application, as well as SRTP for secure voice & media transmission. The key exchange mechanism is important to ensure a full, end-to-end secure solution. The solution should also offer support for different open standard mechanisms such as SDES, MIKEY or ZRTP.

Convenience / Presence. Presence-aware applications enable the worker to stay in contact wherever they are in the world as if they were at their desk — to be able to use multiple mobile platforms, with one business number, one contact list, one voicemail box and Instant Messaging.

RG: Service providers have been lagging somewhat behind everyone else in terms of adoption why is this?

MS: With call volumes moving away from traditional mobile operators, there is the opportunity for service providers to generate additional revenues especially in the SMB and branch offices segments by offering value applications and services including:

  • PBX-Extension-to-Mobile with/without dual-mode phones.
  • Mobile SIP Clients for iPhone, Nokia E, N series, Android (News - Alert) Google phone.
  • Secure Mobile Communications Solutions.
  • Offering both GSM and SIP Services.
  • Opportunity to sell more data on the road: through special agreement for lower data rate and pre-configured hot spot at lower rate.
  • Providing more components to the core of the enterprise = lower churn rate.
  • Generate Enterprise revenues with installation and services. IT

To learn more about Mobility in the work force and about the Media5 line of Mobile Solutions, visit www.media5corp.com

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