European mobile enterprise business market at 'inflection point'

vnunet.com reports that "the European mobile enterprise market is at an "inflection point" characterised by growing demand that has caught many operators unprepared." According to new research from Yankee Group, "several mobile network operators are only now rushing to adapt their strategies to take advantage of demand from business customers."

Yankee noted that "the leading European mobile operators (Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone) are leading the charge to define coherent and segmented enterprise strategies that offer higher value to consumer and business customers."

Nicholas McQuire at Yankee Group said, "Directional change in corporate strategy by Europe's leading mobile operators over the past 18 months proves that the growth of the European mobile enterprise market is promising. The future success of these market leaders will be based on their ability to become trusted enterprise IT advisors on mobility, and to create diverse customised service portfolios."

One interesting point to note is that while "enterprise customers generate a disproportionate amount of revenue," the network operators seem so fixated on marketing to consumers with untried data services such as mobile music, gaming and video.

Another area of disconnect is the industy's targeting of end-users to try and infiltrate the enterprise through the backdoor with handsets and mobile devices. Could you imagine a worker purchasing his or her own notebook and asking IT to support it? Very ittle chance that might happen and yet the mobile industry thinks nothing of it when it comes to new handsets and devices....