by Real Business - Saturday, 1st September 2007

The phrase "mobile office" is one that has been banded around since the advent of mass-market mobile telephony in the early 1990s.

As you sit at your desk in your particularly immobile office and read the increasing number of companies promising mobile working, it is all too easy to dismiss this as just another visionary slogan.

Predictions of a "paperless office" came to prominence in the late 1970s, at the same time as the introduction of the first personal computers.

This move towards an eventual paperless nature of office working proved to be less than prophetic – the introduction of printers and photocopiers brought with it a more paper-full office than ever before.

Mobile working, however, is already becoming a reality for organisations across the world, with the proportion of European companies adopting and investing in mobile working practices likely to continue.

As well as allowing employees to work faster and more efficiently, mobile working brings with it a degree of flexibility. This has tied it closely to the work-life balance debate and flexible working directives at the forefront of current political debate.

While it is far from universal, it is worth underlining the greatest steps that have been made towards an age of mobile working, alongside the hurdles we are yet to overcome.

From business rarity to social necessity

The 1990s brought major steps forward in mobile technology and, in turn, changed the way that mobile phones fit into UK culture. The advent of SMS and low-cost Pay-As-You-Go mobile phones played a major part in pushing mobile uptake to the near-on saturated levels at which they reside today.

While it was a business need that fed the early days of mobile phones, it was the move into mass-market culture that brought us the sleek, streamlined, multi-functional devices that we carry today.

In less than 15 years, mobile phones went from being a rare and expensive business luxury to a low-cost personal item and must-have social tool – but brought us no closer to mobile working as we see it today.

Further technological developments in the late 1990s tended to bring with them more disappointment than progress. The advent of Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is the perfect example.

Initially claiming to offer the "mobile internet", WAP largely failed to live up to the early hype. Overly simplified applications and comparably sluggish loading times were enough to put many people off a service that closed more doors than it opened.

The advent of the mobile office

The birth of the BlackBerry in 1999 brought the first major advance towards true mobile working. It was the first mass-market communication device that not only allowed voice calls and text messaging but also enabled push-email on the move.

BlackBerry’s technology fitted in comfortably alongside existing business systems, allowing users to access their emails as they would through their desktop quickly and easily.

The popularity of the BlackBerry – with subscribers surpassing five million in the early half of 2006 – has brought with it an expectation of further advancements towards remote working.

In the past few years it is the improvement of network speeds that has proven the key to progress. Beyond the short-lived excitement surrounding video-telephony, 3G brought with it a major advancement in connection speeds.

Mobile workers could use a 3G-enabled mobile device, alongside a service such as T-Mobiles web’n’walk, to access the "real" internet on the move. In turn, laptop users could remotely access their business Virtual Private Network (VPN), enabling access to everything that is available at work, through a private communications network, from anywhere they can click online.

This new world of high-speed Internet connections was further enhanced by the spread of Wi-Fi HotSpots. Be it in global coffee chains or airport lounges, Wi-Fi subscribers can connect to the office remotely, send email, and run applications as they would do from their office desks.

In 2006, developments in the field of HSDPA have finally made the era of "broadband in your pocket" a reality.

For the first time connection speeds have hit a level which business users have come to expect. This technology is now available on handheld devices, making the mobile internet more accessible and usable than ever before.

The future

Today "work" is increasingly conceived as something that can happen beyond a set location, but it is still only early days for mobile working. Technology will continue to make a more flexible way of working a reality.

These developments will, in turn, impact on everything, from the growing number of locations from which people will be able to link to the office, to the sizes of these offices, and even the numbers of office car parking spaces outside.

It will no longer be necessary, or financially viable, for employees to travel huge distances to carry out their daily workload. Dead time will be utilised to a greater extent than ever before and, while accountability may increase, actual working hours could reduce.

Despite discussions around the "end of the laptop", it is unlikely it will go this far; certain applications and programs will always require a large screen. However, it is likely that the number of workers that actually require a full-size computer will decrease in the future.

Already we have seen certain companies take these newer technologies in their stride simply because they are better suited to the job. Scottish Water recently made the decision to issue its field engineers with smart phones rather than laptops – a cheaper and more suitable option.

Ocado, the Waitrose online shopping service, has made a similar move, supplying PDA devices to delivery staff. This is a move that is only going to multiply in the future.

We will see a convergence of those devices that business users have tended to rely upon separately in the past. No longer will you look to your BlackBerry for email services, your mobile phone for wireless calls and your PDA/laptop for access to the internet.

The next stage of devices will see those that blur the boundaries even further. Picture a pocket-sized six-inch touch-screen mobile communication device with the power and memory capacity of a laptop, the connectivity speeds of a fixed-line connection, but with the addition of a magnetic keyboard for when a small handheld keyboard isn’t up to the job – this is the way that business devices are moving.

This next generation of hybrid device will be supported by a growing network that will make mobile working a possibility in places that were previously unheard of. We are already seeing Wi-Fi HotSpot access on trains.

This will expand in the future, encompassing access on more mainline train services, as well as airplanes and eventually the Underground. We will see an end to dead time and this increased accessibility will open people’s eyes further to the potential of mobile working.

While we do have mobile internet, we are let down at present by the number of platforms that fail to interoperate between small-screened mobile devices and standard PCs – this will change.

As certain businesses have embraced mobile communications (Google, eBay), more will move in the same direction. The search for the "killer application" to take the mobile internet to the masses will continue, with mobile Instant Messaging (IM) likely to be the first to lay a stake to this claim.

As we stand on the verge of the truly mobile office, it is the technology that will push all these possibilities forward.

The uptake, however, will continue to be dependant on businesses accepting this new way of working. Long-term financial and working benefits will need to be pre-empted by wholehearted investment in the business infrastructure.

This will involve changing systems, business processes and even business culture away from a fixed-line working environment and toward a truly mobile office.

Exciting times lay ahead for mobile working. Flexible working directives will continue to be banded around the political scene, but major steps will only take place if businesses continue to embrace this future.

Tags: instant messaging, paperless office, pay as you go mobile, remote working, mobile office,