Public sector at vanguard of mobile computing

The public sector is leading the way in the deployment and management of mobile computing technologies.

Interviews with 600 UK organisations across several vertical industries and government, commissioned by O2, have shown 70 per cent of public sector departments having rolled out or are running trials of PDAs while around two out of every five respondents said they are looking at smart-phone implementation.

While the private sector is often considered to be more eager to adopt new technologies or ways of working, the research attributed the non-commercial sector's lead mainly to centralised administration of mobile technology purchasing.

An oft-cited statistic for PDA and smart-phone deployment is that 80 per cent of devices are bought privately yet 80 per cent are used for work within organisations, making control of usage critical for security and other reasons.

O2 said that the successful wireless deployments have certain factors in common, besides centralised control of rollout and use. The sanctioning of a technology at a senior level in an organisation is important, as is a quantifiable return on investment.