Skype for Business use on mobile expected to double by 2018

While Skype remains the most popular VoIP tool, the Skype for Business mobile client has been dogged by ongoing quality and technical issues that have slowed its rollout.

A new survey by Unify Square and Osterman Research finds that 30 percent of IT teams' total time spent troubleshooting the Skype platform is devoted to the mobile client.

Despite this, most organizations are happy with Skype for Business Mobile Client with 54 percent satisfied or very satisfied. Only 16 percent are somewhat dissatisfied or very dissatisfied due to technical issues.

Respondents identified mobile battery life and the inability to see application sharing content on the mobile client as top inhibitors to adoption -- both on 28 percent. Other issues are the belief that the functionality and feature set is inferior to desktop (27 percent) and lack of time dedicated by IT to deploy and train end-users (24 percent).

Managing and monitoring for the mobile client is an issue too, only four percent of organizations say they are 'very satisfied' with the telemetry and analytics information made available by Microsoft. In 13 percent of organizations mobile users are bypassing Skype for Business on their mobile devices in favor of consumer messaging tools like Whatsapp or similar.

These issues mean that among organizations that have deployed Skype for Business, nearly two-thirds of employees have been equipped with it on a desktop or laptop computer, while only one in five have it on a mobile device.

However, two years from now, while usage on a desktop or laptop is expected to increase from 64 percent to 73 percent of employees, the penetration on mobile devices is expected to nearly double.

“The true measure of success of Skype for Business is end user satisfaction. If organizations are limiting mobile deployment to just VIPs, their odds of ensuring ROI plummet,” says Scott Gode, VP of product marketing at Unify Square. “The goal should be to make mobile a central part of the overall UC strategy for the entire enterprise. The more end-users feel empowered to use Skype for Business, the less they’ll feel compelled to bypass for other chat applications”.

For more on the findings and on Unify Square's solutions for managing Skype for Business you can visit the company's website.