Small Business Technology Magazine published a great study last October on the use of laptops in small business. It showed that 51% of the survey respondents used laptops as their primary business tool (49% use desktops). The data was based on survey responses from 116 U.S. businesses with 100 or fewer employees.

The study found out a few other things that caught our eye, namely:

• Most (80%) think the most valuable reason to own a notebook is that it allows them to work anywhere;
• 37% consider ubiquitous Internet connectivity the most important feature for their next notebook, followed by longer battery time (18%) and more portable form factors (17%).

This move to laptops has been happening for awhile. For example, in May 2005, analysts hailed the fact that generally laptops now outsell desktops as a “milestone”.

And larger organizations are supporting mobile technologies, too. In a 2005 Network World 500 study entitled “Trends in a Networked World”, almost 80% of large organizations (with IT expenditures exceeding $10 million) surveyed were purchasing laptops. The most common reason (80% of respondents) cited for deploying mobile technologies such as laptops was to increase worker productivity. The study went in to state:

“Right now there is a growing expectation of an always-on, always-connected work-lifestyle, regardless of the employee’s physical location. This has a huge implication for the IT Department…”

Here’s what our customers tell us: While most users want the freedom and productivity improvements that a laptop offers, the reality is quite different. An inability to connect at customers premises, poor performance on wide area wireless and variable quality from different wirless Internet service providers all reduce the productivity of workers using laptops in the field. Once users experience this, they stop relying on web-based collaboration tools. This lowers the adoption and undermines the whole reason for installing collaboration tools in the first place - to make content accessible to everyone.

What is needed is a hybrid architecture content from web collaboration platforms is cached locally so it can be accessed instantly anytime and from anywhere. We are seeing that approach can increase adoption significantly.

Barry.