Evaluating the All-Mobile OptionEvaluating the All-Mobile Option

In many ways, the "consumerization of enterprise telephony" is a fait accompli.

One question I get with great regularity, particularly from those involved in the mobile business, is "Why can't we dump that old PBX and just give everyone a cell phone?" While we initially laughed off the idea, as more and more users are making and receiving the majority of their business calls on a mobile device, perhaps this idea is worth a second look. You give up a lot of functionality when you go from a PBX to a mobile network, but maybe that functionality isn't that important to mobile users.

Mobile phones are essentially "personal communications devices", with no concept of the user being part of a larger "organization." However mobile phones, particularly smartphones, are more convenient to use, with integrated address books and the ability to dial a phone number from a calendar entry, a document, or a web page. However, there are still a lot of business calling features that cell phones lack, including:

* Attendant or Auto Attendant: Cell phones are all "DID"
* Boss-secretary capability
* Call transfer: Unless you install one of those historically unpopular mobile UC clients
* 6-party conference: Of course, you can use a conferencing service for that
* Do Not Disturb: You can turn the thing off, but you'll probably forget to turn it back on
* Hunt groups: The only thing in your "hunt group" is voicemail
* Abbreviated dialing: This is less important given the integrated directory

Over the years, there has been talk of adding such PBX-like features to a cellular service in a plan that is often referred to as "Mobile Centrex", but the overwhelmingly consumer-focused mobile industry has not pushed the idea forward. The mobile operators see their business dominated by the "consumer market", and appear to have little interest in spending a lot of money on stuff that would have value primarily for business customers.

For their part, the PBX and UC&C vendors have tried to bring mobile devices into their product lines, but with little success. While they keep touting mobile UC clients that can allow access to the corporate directory, presence status, and in-call features like hold, conference, and transfer, users have found little value in them and continue to place their business calls using the native capabilities inherent in the device--that is, just like they place their personal calls. About the only "useful" feature they've delivered is simultaneous ring or find me-follow me so their business calls are automatically forwarded to the mobile number.

Besides the feature set, cell phones face other challenges in serving as a primary business phone line. Most notably, they run on batteries and we can't stop doing business when the battery runs out. As a result, you'll see business users huddled around the charging stations at the airport and looking for the seat next to the electric outlet at Starbuck's.

On top of that, the sound quality is often terrible. The codecs used in 2G networks like GSM and CDMA were chosen based on the need to minimize the bandwidth consumed on a network with limited capacity. There may be some hope on the horizon as the carriers shift to voice over LTE (VoLTE), which will be able to support broadband as well as traditional narrowband codecs. That transition is due to begin later this year.

As businesses come to grips with how (and "where") their people are working today, they will have to rethink the wisdom of big offices with desks and phones on them. Speaking to Shane O'Neill of CIO magazine, Joe Hamblin, Unified Communications and Collaboration Manager for Sprint, claimed that with the transition to Microsoft's OCS (now Lync) UC solution, his company was able to reap savings on real estate in the order of $30 million annually by reducing their leased office space by 1.5 million square feet and allowing more of their employees to work from home. I think we'll come to see a lot more use of hoteling, and the user's business number will only be associated with a desk set when they log in at a hoteling facility.

But if all they're getting from the PBX is the ability to forward the call to their mobile, do they even need a PBX or UC seat license? Since almost no one is using those mobile UC clients, none of the mobile users is getting any value from the license we're buying. Maybe what we should be looking for is a session manager that knows our DID numbers (some of which are assigned to mobile users), and if it sees a call to one, it simply forwards it to that user's mobile number.

I can't foresee the complete disappearance of the PBX (or "UC platform") in the near term, especially for applications like contact center; however the value proposition of a PBX to an increasingly mobile workforce seems to be getting weaker by the day. Universities have largely resigned themselves to that fact and rarely install wired phones in dorm rooms. It might be time that telecom buyers start looking at the all-mobile option for at least some of their users. While organizations are moving toward the "Consumerization of IT", I'd argue that the "Consumerization of Enterprise Telephony" has already occurred.

Note: I'd like to thank my good friend Marty Parker for his review and input on this piece.

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