We love this post from the ShoreTel blog
December 1, 2011
Authored by: Pejman Roshan, Vice President, Mobility
The holiday season is upon us, and there’s a good chance that many shiny new smartphones and tablets will be tied up with a bow in the coming weeks. And then those shiny new mobile devices will come into work, and join the other smartphones and tablets that other people have already brought to the office.
There’s no doubt about it: Workers have embraced the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) concept. Executives are a prime driver of the trend, and they have the clout to push through the IT department’s red tape so they can have anywhere, anytime access to their enterprise applications and information. The younger members of the workforce are pushing the boundaries too. They grew up on technology, and they won’t accept that work is a location. Work is an activity.
IT, perhaps rightly so, often sees BYOD as a threat. IT has been operating lean and mean for the last several years, and given their overflowing priority list and rising stakes of security and compliance breaches, they’re not eager to deal with the broader implications of BYOD, including defining and enforcing corporate policy for personally-owned mobile devices and ensuring security is up to snuff. But today’s practice of “don’t ask, don’t tell” opens the door to even greater risk.
With the right solution for mobile unified communications, businesses can have the best of both worlds. Workers can have the freedom to use personally owned smartphones and tablets to stay productive at work while keeping in touch with home. And the organization can mitigate security risks while reaping the productivity and cost benefits of BYOD.
Five Benefits of ShoreTel Mobility
With ShoreTel Mobility, your employees can have enterprise UC capabilities on the smartphones they love, and IT can leverage the IP PBX platform they already have – while reducing costs and securing enterprise communications. Here are five benefits of using ShoreTel Mobility at your organization.
1. Reduce capital costs associated with company-owned phones. A major advantage of BYOD is that your company is no longer responsible for purchasing smartphones and tablets for employees. The tools of modern productivity are no longer available only to the corporate elite. The other 99% of employees can be productive as well.
2. Reduce your company’s mobile phone bills. ShoreTel Mobility can help your organization reduce your mobile phone bills by up to 70 percent across a range of smartphones. Companies with international travelers will see particularly impressive savings. The ShoreTel Mobility software intelligently switches users to the best network at any given moment, whether that is a wireless LAN or a cellular network. Users don’t have to remember to do anything to reap the savings; it all happens transparently.
3. Sophisticated but simple to use. With ShoreTel Mobility, you can satisfy your employees’ desire for flexibility and control. They don’t have to carry a work phone and a personal phone. Nor will employees waste time learning how to use the ShoreTel app on their phone. The native dialer on the phone is easy to use, and workers will have the full power of UC at their fingertips. Plus, workers can easily separate their personal and business identities on the device, so they stay in control of when they’re working – and when they’re not.
4. Give workers their choice of smartphones. ShoreTel Mobility supports a broad range of popular mobile devices. It supports Apple iOS devices, including iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Android phones are also supported, such as Motorola ATRIX 4G, Samsung Galaxy S, Motorola Droid X2, HTC Droid Incredible 2, and Motorola Droid. And of course, the BlackBerryOS 6 platform, including the Blackberry Torch 9800, Bold 9700 and Bold 9780, are supported.
5. Rest assured about security. ShoreTel Mobility secures enterprise communications by leveraging proven standards for robust user and device level authentication and encryption. Additionally, not storing any corporate data on the mobile device, and automatically securing communications while outside the enterprise firewall with an application-layer SSL session, eliminates most security concerns surrounding BYOD. It’s simple to use while it maintains maximum security, whether the person is in the office, in an airport or at home.
