A significant proportion of IT chiefs feel that improvements in network and device management are the responsibility of the operator community, according to a survey by device management firm Mformation.

Eighty two per cent of companies surveyed believe that the ability to manage devices more effectively would lead to a higher increase in productivity. While 79 per cent of those questioned believe that it is the responsibility of the operator to improve network and device management. It is this management that will enable them to get the most out of these devices they say.

“Businesses need support with any technology they roll out and this is no different with mobile devices; it’s a great opportunity for operators to provide a value add and access new revenue streams through new applications,” said Matt Bancroft, vice president, Mformation.

There was good news for the voice over IP community as Mformation reckons 70 per cent of businesses plan to be using the technology regularly on their mobile devices over the next two years; this is up from the current figure of 27 per cent.

Mobile email, internet and calendar applications are already pervasive, with more than 90 per cent of companies using them, and businesses are also set to significantly increase the use of sales force applications and company file share systems.

“We’ve reached the point in the market where mobile business applications are tried and tested and now people are really starting to use them. However this raises an interesting challenge for CIOs in terms of management. While IT departments have the solutions in place to manage business applications that reside on laptops or PCs, doing this on mobile handsets presents a far greater challenge; for example, they’ll need to start thinking about how to deploy applications, patches and updates over the air,” said Bancroft.

Just over two thirds of managers surveyed use mobile devices regularly and that is set to increase in over half of the companies questioned. Comparatively, only about 35 per cent of employees below manager level currently use smart devices regularly, though this is set to increase in three out of four companies.

“Smart phones are fast becoming as important to the business user as laptops. Business people want to be able to use the same applications that are available on their laptops on their smart phones, and this is quickly becoming a reality,” Bancroft added.