Ever used your phone to find the way with an interactive map, ‘googled’ a film to settle a point with friends whilst out for dinner, updated your status on a social networking site over the weekend or paid for your takeaway using your phone? These are simple examples, scratching the surface of the powerful processing and communication capabilities delivered by a wide array of mainstream smart phones.

With such powerful processing and communication possibilities available, it is not difficult to feel that communication technologies have gone past a tipping point, where consumer devices have become more able to provide the basis for complete and cost effective communication platforms compared to expensive bespoke corporate information technology and telephony infrastructures. In trading markets, we have seen regulators, most notably the FSA in the UK, start to seriously acknowledge the role mobile communication has in daily trading activities, putting in place new recording regulations in line with current dealer board and turret rules. 

Clearly, the commercial world still has very specific and critical needs, which must be fully understood and effectively addressed in a reliable and secure manner. There have been positive moves to rationalise costs of managing corporate infrastructures through globalisation and outsourcing. Although until now, unified communications has been a method of providing connectivity, linking what were once isolated and specific capabilities to providing a more connected set of communications tools, but perhaps addressing the symptoms rather than the root limitations.