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Mobile Workforce Needs

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Applies To: Windows Server 2008 R2

More users have become mobile to stay productive while they are away from the office. According to IDC, the third quarter of 2008 marked the point at which computer manufacturers began shipping more mobile computers than desktop computers worldwide (IDC Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, December 2008).

The number of mobile users is expected to grow; in 2008, mobile workers worldwide will be 26.8% of the total workforce, and that number will increase to 30.4% by 2011 (IDC, "Worldwide Mobile Worker Population 2007–2011 Forecast," Doc #209813, Dec 2007).

However, the way users access network resources hasn’t changed. Although home broadband, wireless broadband, and Wi-Fi allow users to connect to the Internet while they are away from the office, corporate firewalls prevent them from connecting to resources on the intranet. Only users physically connected to the intranet can access intranet resources. This becomes a management problem because IT administrators can update computers only when they connect to the intranet. To overcome this limitation, many organizations provide VPNs.