Two Waves of Support: Balancing Security & Mobility

Nathan McNeill, VP of Product Management:
More and more homes are connected - interconnected. beyond just the broadband connection at home you have a network whether for media, or as a home office, or what. A couple of the recent - few more trends. The number of teleworkers has increased. This is due to a couple of factors. One is simply just globalization. That, because of the increase in communication capabilities, companies are now having to reach further out with their offices, with their workers, and compete on a global level. Another is just the increased cost of transportation. You know, the long commute for us here at our offices is about 35 minutes. A long commute at a lot of places is about two hours. So, if you look at that, you know, four hours productivity can be gained just by having the worker work from home versus having them come in everyday.

Another factor as well is just the search for talent. You know, finding the exact right person for the position no matter where they may reside physically. And, along the same lines, a number of regional offices increasing versus kind of the single gargantuan corporate headquarters. And, the number of adults with broadband internet access has increased from less than 5% in 2000 to more than 30% in 2005. And, I think that's a trend that's just going to continue to increase. And, no one seems to be really questioning it.

The overall trends are toward increasing mobility and increasing connectivity. Everyone wants their technology no matter where they go, no matter where they plug up. They want everything to work and everything to work well. And then, the whole advent of the digital home. This is moving - it's an emerging trend that's kind of already upon us in some ways, but continuing to grow in others. A lot of people have broadband at home and they're continuing to plug more and more stuff up to that. More and more network devices at the home beyond just the broadband connection to the point where some homes have even started to do more home controls like controlling heating/cooling systems, security systems, through a PC interface. And, along with that, support complexity rises as well.