Almost all current or perspective users of smartwatches and other wearable technologies want to use them for work, according to a Harris Poll survey commissioned by MDM vendor MobileIron.
The survey, which covered 3500 workers who use mobile devices for work in the US, western Europe and Japan, found that 94 per cent of those who either owned or were planning to own a wearable would want to use them for work tasks.
+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Review: Docker Swarm soars, and the sky's the limit | Insider threats force balance between security and access +
That figure included 58 per cent who said they would use the devices to read emails, 43 per cent who would use them for alerts, and 39 per cent who wanted access to their calendar or schedule from their wearable.
Ojas Rege, vice president of strategy for MobileIron, said in a statement that the popularity of prospective enterprise use was startling.
"We have seen headlines about the massive consumer demand for Apple Watch, but it is astonishing to see this level of enterprise demand before it is even available," he said.
However, while the smart watches might well see plenty of enterprise use, some question how transformative they'll actually be. Aaron Salow is the CEO of XOEye Technologies, a company that makes smart glasses for industrial and professional use, and he said that for the enterprise sector there hasn't been an overwhelming case made for smart watches.
"I do believe that we will start to see piqued interest with larger players entering the space, but outside of smart glasses, watches have not shown us a killer use case," he told Network World. "We have to continue to ask the question with any new wearable: is this a nice to have, or a must have?"