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It can be a joy to work at home. The sun filters through the canopy of sycamore trees that line the garden above the beech hedge. A gentle breeze occasionally nudges the conservatory doors, opened wide to take advantage of the absolute delight that is the peak of the British spring. Fresh garden smells mingle with happy birdsong.

It is natural on a day like this to want to work in comfortable clothing and my rugby shorts and very old Mitel VoIP tshirt fit the bill. Wouldn’t fit in with the office but that is ok. I’m at home this morning.

I’m off after lunch to Laandan to the Global Telecoms Business Awards where we are finalists with Genband in the Innovation category. It’s all about mobility. I have my Timico mobile VoIP client running on my Samsung Galaxy S4 on one side of the desk and a high quality business handset one the other. It is plugged in to one of the two Cat5 ports in the conservatory. I have Cat5 in all the rooms downstairs though I rarely use them other than to plug in a phone.

When my phone rings I normally answer the desktop handset. However the beauty of having the mobile client is that I can wander off to make a cup of tea in the kitchen and if the phone rings I answer it on the mobile instead of having to rush back to the conservatory.

I also use the mobile client when I’m out and about. It genuinely is useful, especially when I’m roaming overseas. The hotel (garret – cat swinging will cause injury to both parties) I’m staying at in town has free wifi. I’ll be able to use my work extension there and I’m pretty sure that the Park Lane Hotel where the bash is tonight also has free wifi though I doubt I will be able to hear the phone ring amongst all the noise of champagne cork popping and celebrations. You know what it’s like.

That’s all for now. Gotta go. Things to do & penguin suit to dig out.

The mobile communications market has for years been characterised as a commodity space. Selling mobile services was largely a matter of who offers the best price. The rise of the smart phone and the pursuant growth in mobile data is changing this.

Price is still important but these devices are so expensive that the amount of hard cash people (consumers) are willing to spend on their mobile contract has grown considerably. I know this from first hand experience having a 19 year old student son who spends not an insubstantial amount of his monthly budget on an iPhone4 contract.

This in turn is a source of angst for businesses who have not traditionally provided the bulk of their staff with top of the range handsets. Unless you have been in a media vacuum over the last six months you will know that this has led to a phenomenon known as Consumerisation of IT and the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) revolution.

I have written about this before. As a provider of mobile services