UK COMPANY WEBSITES ARE NOT MEETING MOBILE DEMAND

Published 9th December 2008

Customers on the move suffer poor Internet experience

Two thirds of UK businesses are failing to deliver high-end customer experience by not optimising their websites for mobile devices, according to a survey of 100 CIOs by e-Spirit.

There has been a massive surge in the number of people accessing the Internet by mobile devices, as they become more ubiquitous. However, only 35 per cent of CIOs questioned have optimised their websites to prepare for this growing trend.

Robert Bredlau, director of international development, e-Spirit UK, said: “ We’ve seen a boom in the use of the internet on mobile handsets in the last year, thanks to devices like the iPhone and BlackBerry.

“The trouble is a lot of web content is designed for viewing on standard size screens, so viewing them on anything smaller can result in a poor user experience.”

“Companies are hampering their own success by not maximising their website’s potential.”

e-Spirit’s software - FirstSpirit 4.1 - allows any company to deliver mobile-specific content. It does this by using a content aggregator and device handler that renders the information in a format that is device-specific and compatible.

In addition to the mobile delivery capabilities, FirstSpirt 4.1 includes automated database schemas and third party portals, allowing integrate content from subsidiaries across multiple legacy systems and databases, quickly and easily. It also gives companies the ability to publish content to multiple output channels, including portals (SAP Netweaver, IBM Websphere, WS Commerce, Microsoft Sharepoint), PDF, print and mobile devices via WML.