Mobile Intelligence

14.1 INTRODUCTION

A long time the technology in offices was limited to paper and ink since the first office environments. Paper is a robust, consistent, and persistent information medium that is easy to use and not fixed to a location. It is still used for communication internally inside the office building and externally with customers or other authorities. Also, the location of offices was a strategic decision that considered traditional circumstances. You can find business areas in nearly each city supporting paper communication and face-to-face meetings. But location is expensive as is generally known. Compared with manufacture plants, where work spaces are used nearly 100% of the day, offices are occupied only 30%. In consulting companies where most of the employees work the most time outside the offices, the usage is even less than 10%. Reducing the amount of offices directly reduces the fixed costs.

Technology progress has fundamentally changed the work situation in offices. Information can be delivered over large distances easily within short time. What was earlier printed on paper became digitized and available online from almost everywhere. New devices were developed changing and supplementing paper work like printer, fax, and photocopier. Today an office without such devices cannot be imagined. Unfortunately, this development did not decrease the number of offices holding the price of placement still very high.

The solution to this unsatisfying situation are flexible ...