Business ideas come in waves and VON conferences are a good way to see what’s hot. An idea that was very visible at VON Europe this past week was Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) for the enterprise. There must have been 8–9 exhibitors with this theme, either new startups or existing companies repositioning to hit the wave.
Since I’ve been speaking about FMC for the past year, I was interested. The general pattern is to integrate dual mode handsets with IP-PBX technology, i.e. nobody is waiting for IMS. The compelling business justifications, in order, are to save money, give the IT department more control and provide PBX features to mobile users.
Of course the reason this is happening now is appropriate handsets are becoming available. There are still issues of battery life while using WiFi, but compared to the first generation WiFi-only phones, today’s phones actually have the look and feel of a mobile phone. And they include GSM and/or 3G as well as WiFi.
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