Mobility Omitted on Gartner Top 10 Technologies

An annual event on Gartner's calendar is the publication of their top ten technologies.

They say: "Companies should look at these 10 opportunities and evaluate where these technologies can add value to their business services and solutions, as well as develop a process for detecting and evaluating the business value of new technologies as they enter the market."

But this year's list, for some reason, omits mobility technologies and specifically Fixed Mobile Convergence.

Fixed Mobile Convergence brings together the enterprise wired and WiFi environments with public cell networks. FMC allows enterprises to get more out of their growing mobility investments and more control over their mobility environments from cost, security and functionality perspectives, in the broader context of unified communications (UC).

True. Solutions to date have provided limited functionality, been centered around a small set of clients (including first gen dual mode sets) and built on wireless LANs that were not designed for voice coverage and performance. As a result, deployments have been few and far between.

I expect to see roll-your-own and service provider solutions that better fit enterprise environments and subsequently are more broadly deployed, extending PBX features to mobile users, providing handoff between cell and wireline phones, and improved dual mode operation.

You'll have to ask Gartner why mobility was not on their list.