Microsoft tests scheduling app Project Sonoma

Microsoft is working on a mobile app targeting deskless workers — a market for managing and scheduling work hours that some peg as having huge potential.

The app, codenamed Project Sonoma, is being tested by employees at companies that have signed up to participate in the private preview. Other companies targeting that same market include startup Shyft.

The app “lets employees view and manage their work shifts from their phone. People whose company has signed up to participate during the testing phase can install and use the app,” Microsoft said in a statement. “We can confirm that Project Sonoma has been developed internally by Microsoft from the ground up and is not based on an acquisition.”

Microsoft declined to say whether its app allows shift swaps, as Shyft and similar apps do. But reports in Engadget and MSPowerUser said that Project Sonoma does allow employees to request shift swaps.

Some see lots of opportunities in the market for employees who don’t have a desk and aren’t tied to a PC.

Kevin Spain, partner with venture-capital firm Emergence Capital, said that while the market for software for deskbound workers is not going away, there’s a gap for apps that address deskless workers. Those workers, he said, represent 80 percent of employees worldwide and most of them now carry smartphones.

“Over the last 18 months, we have seen a noticeable uptick in applications built specifically for ‘deskless’ workers,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “At Emergence, we believe there will be many billion-dollar mobile enterprise companies created to address the deskless worker population.”