Customer knowledge is the most important requirement. Customers need the
right to use corporate files on any device, with the skill to stay
productive from any location, at any time. Cooperation with
coworkers and associates should be natural, fast, and easy. To enable
this group effort and improve decision making, users must be able
to create, ingest, and share data without any restrictions across
a range of plans and environments. And social media plays a huge
role: This once-personal technology experience has moved directly
into the work environment as a true collaboration tool. Customers rely on it
for mass-sourced decision making, peer friends and networking,
customer interactions, and business-to-business collaboration.
As collaboration becomes a key part of business success, so does
mobility. Today’s workers are performing more work away from
their desks, whether it’s on the shop floor, at a client’s place, at
home, or while traveling. The rapid rise in the number of portable
devices—from smart phones, tablets, Ultrabook™ devices, and
laptops, to embedded computing technology in sensors, kiosks, and
readers—demonstrates how the nature of how and where we work
is forever changed. And with this move to mobility comes a direct
impact on device requirements.
First, the device should be easily portable, thin, and light. Users require
devices with long battery life, with instant-on technology so that
data and services are immediately accessible. The device experience
should be a natural fit for the user within his or her job role. Users
now expect to interact with computing technology in a more natural
way, including having the option of touch or type capabilities on the
same device. Today, touch technology is becoming more and more
pervasive alongside traditional KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) input/
output control; in the near future, voice control, facial recognition, and
advanced digital pen technology...