By 2016 most collaboration applications will be available equally on PCs, smartphones, tablets and browsers, Gartner predicts-- solving app and service fragmentation while enabling employees to collaborate more effectively.
"In the past, collaboration on mobile devices meant interaction through wireless messaging and voice calls," the analyst says. "Today smartphones and tablets have larger screens, touch-based UIs, location support, broad network connectivity, enhanced cameras and video support, VoIP, and so on. Such features enable a range of applications-— both traditional and new-— for employees to better communicate, collaborate, socializs, create and consume content."
Fragmentation and lack of standardisation forces organisations to use mobile collaboration to solve specific issues via multiple tools. However Gartner predicts the market will mature over the next 3-5 years until every business uses mobile collaboration, with the bring your own device (BYOD), personal cloud file sharing and increasing mobile app availability trend driving such growth. Read more...
