Fixed Mobile Convergence

Office and mobile workers’ fretting over being “available” through technologies such as cell phones and instant messaging, particularly during non-work hours, is leading to e-mail addictions so powerful that they’re risking employees’ health, relationships and even the welfare of those around them, a new study has found.

 

Officials with Black Diamond, Washington-based Osterman Research say their report, released today and titled “Mobile Messaging Marketing Trends,” indicates that worry over availability only will increase during this economic downturn, where workers likely will be expected to take on more responsibility because of budget and headcount reductions.

The study was commissioned by Austin-based Neverfail, a group that works to ensure the continuous availability of business applications. For Neverfail, the pressure facing the “always online” employees underscores the importance of e-mail reliability.

 

According to Osterman’s study, employees engage in risky, even inappropriate behavior, to access and respond to e-mail during off hours. That jeopardizes their work-life balance – such as sending e-mails while “intimate” with partners – and can cause health problems, the report says.

 

Here are some interesting statistics.

 

The report finds that 79 percent of respondents have e-mailed while in the bathroom; 77 percent while driving a car and 40 percent while on a commercial flight when the plane is airborne.

 

Access to mobile e-mail is critical for many in an increasingly mobile workforce. According to the study, 80 percent of respondents say their managers’ ability to make good decisions requires that technology. For the report’s backers, that means a mobile messaging platform, for example, must be protected against downtime.

 

TMCnet had a chance to put some questions about the report to Michael Osterman, president of Osterman Research, and Andrew Barnes, senior vice president of corporate development for Neverfail. Not only did we hear some interesting terms – such as “CrackBerry,” for people addicted to their PDAs, but we also got some good, hard examples of companies that rely heavily on continuous services, such as those that Neverfail works to ensure.

 

Our exchange follows.

 

 

Michael Osterman: I think the problems vary by individual, such as the extreme of the “CrackBerry” addicts that we heard about in news reports and commentary a year or so ago, to much milder problems, such as loss of productivity that results from constantly breaking concentration in order to check e-mail on a mobile device. There are people who become so accustomed to an always connected lifestyle that checking e-mail on a mobile device, constant texting, and so on, becomes deeply woven into their lifestyle to the point of addiction. Plus, the survey revealed that many people check mobile devices while driving, flying, and so on – venues for which checking mobile devices is not advisable, indicating that many have gone past the point of using mobile devices simply for their utility.

 

 

MO: It will depend to a large extent on individual preferences, but many people choose to compartmentalize their time so that they check e-mail, mobile devices, etc. during certain periods – such as only a few times per day – or they simply stop after a certain time. The problem with maintaining a healthy work-life balance will continue to affect more people over time, however, as the concept of mobility – allowing people to work wherever they are — becomes more widespread. Companies like IBM and Boeing (News - Alert), for example, allow people to work much more flexibly, meaning that many will work from home and will need to strike that balance.

 

 

MO: It’s a trend that we have seen building over time. The “hoteling” concept, in which people are given a temporary place to work when they are in the office, is certainly catching hold. This allows an organization to cut the cost of real estate, utilities, and so on, and shift work to employees’ homes. The economic slowdown will likely speed this trend as organizations look to cut costs even further.

 

 

Andrew Barnes: The problems associated with downtime, for the most part, far out way the burden some might feel from being continuously accessible. Take Neverfail customer Native American Services Corp., for example. NASCO is a contractor specializing in construction management, emergency response, facility maintenance and environmental remediation projects for government clients, and, as such, relies heavily on instantaneous e-mail communications.

 

NASCO receives more than one business-related e-mail every six seconds, and time is money. When the company was in the process of preparing a $75 million proposal, its Exchange server crashed, causing a companywide outage that left employees without e-mail for three days. The employees who were preparing the proposal were scattered throughout the county and desperately required e-mail services to finish the proposal. Employees were forced to open personal e-mail accounts as a short-term solution.

 

E-mail downtime in this case would definitely not be considered a blessing; it could have meant the end of the organization. Fortunately, that didn’t happen and the company is now protected with Neverfail’s business continuity solution for Exchange.

 

The other side to this is that if e-mail is down before a critical event, it increases stress levels and drives people to unwanted behavior patterns. For example, a senior executive may be taking a red-eye from San Francisco and is expecting important documents/spreadsheets to arrive by e-mail before he departs so he can prepare for a meeting straight off the plane. If e-mail is down and the documents do not arrive, then he may be tempted to check his e-mail during the flight. This would be a direct result of the e-mail downtime.

 

 

AB: The reasons for outages vary, and may include everything from data loss, server failure, application failure, or network failure to planned downtime, application performance degradation and corruption or a complete site outage, or disaster.

 

It’s a fact of life that IT outages will happen; therefore, a critical goal should be that when an outage to e-mail occurs, it should not result in business disruption and downtime – end-users should simply continue operating as if nothing has happened, thus delivering on the promise of consistent business performance.

 

Neverfail provides a shared nothing software solution that maintains a clone of the e-mail system on a second server. If the first server goes down, or elements of the e-mail software fail, Neverfail will automatically assign the second server to provide the e-mail service. This is done in a way that users aren’t disrupted and it can protect the extended e-mail system including anti-virus servers and Blackberry Enterprise Servers. In addition, e-mail very often uses information from SQL databases – as part of workflow control – so Neverfail also delivers high availability and disaster recovery for these systems.