"Wannabe" mobile worker flood predicted

A new class of mobile workers is emerging, says Forrester Research. Employees will insist upon mobile support from employers, and already nearly a third of smart phone users expense all or some of their monthly wireless bills.

Currently, the mobile "wannabes" represent 6 percent of the present work force, but Forrester estimates they will grow to 25 percent of workers within the next four years, with a whopping 73 percent of the work force considered some sort of mobile worker by 2012.

It's a wave being attributed to a bottom-up demand from all types of workers who want to user their personal mobile devices (iPhone) to access corporate apps. IT managers more narrowly define mobile workers as on-the-road execs or managers, telecommuters and/or field service employees; the groups roughly represents 20 percent of the work force.

Employees purchase their own devices, but end up expensing their corporate-related wireless voice and data access to the company. The wannabes include executive assistants, HR workers and finance department employees who are generally at their desks most of the time, but use smart phones to grab email and work with other corporate apps. The younger-than-30 Millennials also have come to expect mobile support, because they've ditched landline phones at home.

Happiness is forecasted for vendors, device makers, app developers and network operators - if they figure out they should be making mobile friendly products and services.

For more:
- eWeek talks about the new class of mobile workers. Article [1].