Social mobility the main focus at IBM ConnectED 2015
Published January 28, 2015
As mobile devices becomes further and further ingrained in users’ everyday routines, both socially and in the workplace, IBM aims for a mobile strategy that takes into account the reality that today, our phones and mobile devices are really an extension of ourselves.
That’s the message Dan Swango, Director, IBM Collaboration Solutions, and Baan Slavens, Sr. Project Manager, IBM Connections, broadcast during their ConnectED session Tuesday morning, “IBM’s Mobile Strategy and a Social Way to Work.”
IBM held it’s ConnectED, formerly IBM Connect, conference in Orlando, Florida this past week, drawing thousands of business leaders, technologists, and business partners looking to find innovative ways to socially and digitally transform their business.
The ways in which mobile devices have transformed our lives is profound, Slavens explains during the Tuesday session. The average person unlocks his or her phone 110 times a day. Twenty five percent of Americans now only use mobile devices to access the Internet. There are now five times as many cell phones than personal computers.
You know that uneasy feeling you get when you aren’t near your phone or are out of signal? There’s a word for that now—nomophobia.
“It’s an extension of who we are. We depend on these devices,” Slavens says. “It really changes the way that I behave and do things on a regular basis.”
Slavens and Swango explain that this behavioral shift—as well as users’ desires to work the way they socialize—is a guiding principle for the future growth of IBM social programs.
More than 100 updates were pushed out to the mobile portfolio in 2014, says Slavens, including further mail and calendar synchronization for IBM Traveler and built-in softphone for Sametime and Connections Meetings.
In 2015, the company looks to further move in the direction of mobile integration, Swango says. The Verse mobile client, released soon for iOS, with access to cloud-based mail, calendar and contacts, promises to bring a change to the way users interact with their inbox. It will organize mail by who is important to the recipient, and will integrate other services and features like Sametime, Connections and action item tracking. The iOS app will be followed by versions for Android and Windows phones.
Other updates to be on the lookout for include upgrades to IBM Connections, with continued enhancements to the user experience, activities support in Smart Cloud and MobileIron and Citrix Support. Users can also expect upgrades to IBM Sametime, with new file transfer capabilities, video chat for smartphones and MobileIron and Citrix Support.
IBM Connections Meetings will also get some updates, with integration with Verse, new whiteboarding capabilities and MobileIron and Citrix Support.
For more information and news from IBM ConnectED2015, visit the SocialBiz User Group page at socialbizug.org.