Telecommunications and Mobile Communicating

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Mobile, portable computing has definitely transformed our lives and work place behavior. The most obviously example of this is how it has encouraged us to expect immediate availability. It has fed our ever-growing need for immediate gratification and there are both positive and negative repercussions because of this. It is a good to be able to have access to information, entertainment and business resources whenever and wherever you happen to be (Landau, 2010). It allows almost limitless flexibility and contributes to our increasingly mobile ecommerce. The ability to surf the web, watch a video or network with others has both personal as well as business benefits and the sky truly seems to be the limit in this area. Everyone has seen the ads on TV of the sales person rushing around to meetings in a car while he updates presentations, responds to questions and conducts business that once would have only been possible from an office. On the negative side, this type of increase in efficiency has its limits. One can only shave so much time off of conducting a transaction before a company would need to be prescient to continue the trend. In addition, this type of "always connected" mindset can lead to stress or burnout on the job and a not always realistic expectation by customers that their every question, request or demand will be immediately satisfied (Orman, 2010). This is where service level agreements need to boil down these expectations into the nuts and bolts of the contract to which all parties agreed.

It is very important for a company to be aware of technology and telecommunications capabilities to avoid missing out on opportunities. However, there is a reason that many professionals are leery of what's commonly referred to as being on the "bleeding edge" of technology. When a company rushes to embrace new, unproven technology, there can be painful consequences. First among those consequences is almost certain to be purchase price. Waiting for industry standards to stabilize and prices to drop is often the right thing for a business to do (Boline, 2010). However, this type of rationalization can be carried too far to the detriment of a firm. An example of this can be seen in some companies' PC refresh process. Most companies recognize that the PCs used by their workers have a finite lifecycle and need ...