Remote Working: Technically Easy but Culturally Difficult

LONDON, March 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

- Unified Communications Expo Opens Today With Two Seminar Streams Dedicated to Remote Working and First-see Product Demonstrations in the UK

Unified Communications Expo 2011 http://www.ucexpo.co.uk - the UK's leading business communication event bringing together the key technologies and key people of this rapidly evolving world - opens its door today at 9.30am at Olympia. On the same day, new research indicates that remote working is still a controversial topic in the UK.

Research among delegates who pre-registered to attend illustrates that there's still a difference of opinion when it comes to remote working in the UK. Almost exactly half of those surveyed claimed that people are accepting of remote working and that home working can be just as productive, indicating that attitudes here are almost perfectly split down the middle. There is however a marked difference between the technology- and business-focused attendees with 61% of the technology audience against just 45% of the business audience agreeing that it's acceptable.

In addition, 79% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that smartphones are now essential to their business, implying that, even if attitudes towards home working are divided, attitudes towards mobile integration are not. Unified Communications Expo will continue this debate with two seminars streams dedicated to the topic, featuring the leading companies in this space including BlackBerry, Vodafone, Microsoft and Mitel on hand to answer delegate questions.

Interesting seminars from the Enterprise Mobility and Flexible working seminar tracks include:

How Chatter and Salesforce Mobile drive real-time social communication and more effective decision making by Xavier Ormazabal, Salesforce. Tuesday 8th 14.30 - 15.00

Challenges facing everyday business collaboration and how mobility can help by Steve Flavell, Ring2 Conferencing. Tuesday 8th 15.50 - 16.20

How to leverage flexible working practices and keep your business moving forward by Philip Vanhoutte, Plantronics. Wednesday 9th 11.50 - 12.20

Show highlights:

The business case for video panel session includes Cisco, HP, LifeSize, Polycom, Radvision and Vidyo and is chaired by Richard Thurston, Senior Analyst at Ovum NEC demonstrates its Android Cloud Communicator for the first time in the UK ShoreTel announces the launch of ShoreTel Mobility, a comprehensive portfolio of solutions delivering desk phone and UC capabilities to customers' mobile devices Mitel announces the UK launch of Mitel Mobility for BlackBerry Mobile Voice System 5 CTI Group launches the SmartInteraction Suite for call centres Jabra unveils a new entry-level headset

Digirati and Artesian at Unified Communications Expo demonstrate their deployment, integration and consultancy around the recently launched IBM Cognos Collaboration platform

Unified Communications Expo 2011 takes place in Olympia on 8-9 March 2011.