Bring Your Own Device, Voice Virtualisation Key Trends for the Future

In the future mobile phones will dominate, with businesses moving to a ’bring your own device’ strategy and voice virtualisation will take on more importance in business’ networks according to survey results(1) taken by Mitel (NASDAQ: MITL). These results further align with the company’s Mitel Freedom architecture that was announced late last year.

Highlights of the survey include:

• 53 percent of respondents felt that, in the future, mobile phones will become the dominant communication device in the workplace. These same responders also stated that their organisations will move to a ’bring your own device’ strategy in the future.

• 90 percent of respondents said that virtualisation will take on greater importance in their network in 2011 with 34 percent of these saying that voice virtualisation will take on the greatest level of importance. Cloud virtualisation and desktop virtualisation followed in priority at 31 and 25 percent respectively.

• 74 percent of respondents believed they could achieve a stronger ROI using a best-of-breed network approach versus a single vendor.

“These survey results demonstrate that the Mitel Freedom architecture is in direct correlation with addressing the communications needs of customers,” said Stephen Beamish, vice-president of marketing and business development for Mitel. “With Mitel Freedom, organisations have the flexibility to break free from the ‘walled garden’ vendor model and design a communications network based on best-in-class technologies. It also allows organizations to deliver a tailored, in-office experience to all employees, extending UC features to any device, enabling the ‘bring your own device’ approach which we believe will become more prevalent in the future.”

Frost & Sullivan’s recently released survey(2) on mobility usage supports the Mitel survey findings. It showed that 49 percent of respondents identify mobile phones as primary endpoints used for business communications.

“Organisations are driving the use of mobile unified communications applications to help reduce cost, enhance mobile worker productivity, enable work/life balance, provide better customer service, reduce travel, and increase collaboration across distributed teams,” said Elka Popova, North American program director, unified communications & collaboration, Frost & Sullivan. “Survey participants indicated that in 2011 they intend to increase their spending across a broad set of communications and collaboration technologies, including mobile devices and applications. Mitel’s Freedom architecture provides flexible, easy-to-manage solutions to address the trend toward increased mobile integration.”

Frost & Sullivan further reported that more than 90 percent of large and 75 percent of small/mid-sized companies would describe their communications infrastructure as multi-vendor as opposed to end-to-end single vendor. According to the survey, this trend will continue over the next 24 months with the majority of businesses shifting to more tightly integrated multi-vendor environments.

“We need the freedom to let people work in ways that are most effective for them, and to stay in touch with customers no matter what we’re doing or where we are,” said Amit Mantri, director of network operations for Intrasphere Technologies, a life sciences consulting firm. “This is what Mitel brings to the table. We’re very excited about our future with Mitel. With all of the benefits we get, the possibilities for the future seem endless.”

(1) Mitel survey conducted during the Mitel Freedom webcast on November 15, 2010.

(2) Enterprise Communications in 2011: Buyers Reveal their Top Priorities, Frost & Sullivan, December 2010.

About Mitel

Mitel (NASDAQ:MITL) is a global provider of business communications and collaboration software and services. Mitel's Freedom architecture provides the flexibility and simplicity organizations need to support today's dynamic work environment. Through a single cloud-ready software stream, Mitel delivers a powerful suite of advanced communications and collaboration capabilities that provides freedom from walled garden architectures and enables organizations to implement best-of-breed solutions on any network; extends the "in-office" experience anywhere, on any device; and offers choice of commercial options to fit business needs. For more information visit: http://www.mitel.com

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Media Contact:

Sebastian Rice, +61 2 9571 1330, seb@silverspan.com

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