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them with corporate systems so that staff can enjoy the real-time collaboration offered by popular consumer technologies without compromising network or data security.

A small minority of forward-thinking companies have embraced the consumerisation of IT to the extent that they now give employees an allowance with which to buy their choice of computing/communications device and/or apps for them to own.

One possible beneft of this approach is that it will put an end to the practice of deliberately breaking a phone or computer as a means of getting something different or more up-to-date. In a recent survey by online back-up provider Mozy, 13% of UK respondents said that the quickest way to get a new device was to damage an existing model.

The communications experience

Modifying systems to support consumer technologies won’t necessarily be easy, but it does offer benefts to businesses of all sizes, including the potential for cost savings and greater accountability. Take the example of unifed communications, which addresses some of the same issues as the consumerisation of IT but from an enterprise’s perspective. One costly problem faced by businesses is employees’ use of mobile phones to make and take business calls when in the offce. Not only does this add unnecessary costs, it also bypasses the controls and functionality of the offce PBX so that calls can’t be transferred and there is no audit trail or record of a call.

Replacing employees’ mobile phones with a SIP-enabled smartphone with built-inWiFi and the ability to run applications would not only give employees a desirable device with all the latest must-have features such as a touch-screen display. It would also enable the employer to integrate mobile telephony with the company phone system. Loading an FMC (fxed mobile convergence) client on the Samsung Galaxy S, for example, would automatically route calls to and from the smartphone via the company phone system when the user was in the offce and via the mobile phone network when he or she was out of range of the corporateWiFi network, with seamless handover in mid-call if necessary.

This capability leads on to other benefts, such as having just one contact number for people to call with automatic re-routing of calls to a current location and the display of your and your colleagues’ presence status (itself a consumer innovation now widely used in the business world).

Deskphone replacement

Another example of consumer technology that has real benefts for communications and collaboration is Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablet computer, soon to be available in a range of screen sizes. Putting a SIP client on the Galaxy Tab and adding a USB headset/handset allows it to work as a deskphone on any SIP-enabled phone system, including the Samsung OffceServ and Samsung Ubigate, as well as PBXs from other manufacturers.

This removes the need for a permanent deskphone, whilst giving the user additional functionality including a touch-screen display and the ability to load further apps. Signifcantly, with a price tag in the region of £400, the Galaxy Tab is almost four times cheaper than the dedicated touch-screen tablets marketed by other phone system suppliers.

Because the tablet is based on the Android operating system, users the opportunity to do install a huge choice of app giving you another screen t Displaying email on the Ga instance, would allow you t new messages simply by m eyes havi betw appl bring majo prod bene

Conclusion

The consumerisation of IT is now unstoppable.While it clearly has major implications for enterprise IT departments facing ever more stringent data security and compliance obligations, this should not blind managers to its benefts, especially in small and medium-sized businesses that through cloud-based services can now enjoy levels of performance and functionality once limited to enterprise organisations. As the need for collaboration and mobility grows and the division between the home and offce becomes more fuid, more and more offce workers will choose products that perform equally well in both environments.With our heritage in the consumer and business-to-business markets, Samsung’s products are designed to satisfy the demands of the IT department and end users alike. To fnd out how Samsung products can help your business improve communications and become more agile, please visit

www.samsungbusiness.com

...the quickest way to get a new device was to damage an existing model.