Author Archive
Thursday, March 17th, 2011
Barbara Nelson, CTO
It is hard to believe that I have lived in America as long as I have lived in Ireland. While I love living and working in Silicon Valley, the high tech capital of the world, in my heart and soul I am Irish.
I get reminded of this whenever I go back to Dublin, whether for business or to visit my family. I feel Irish when I receive my annual email from the president of Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day. I feel Irish whenever I hear of new innovation happening in Ireland, and it makes me very proud to be Irish when I see success emanating from Ireland.
While I am Irish every day of the year, on March 17th, it amazes me how everyone is proud to be Irish. Everyone has their own Irish experience. It may be the stereotypical drinking of green beer, or wearing green clothes. But, it is often a story told of a great time they had in Ireland, or when they felt truly welcomed by someone Irish. They are surprised, but I am not. It may be a stereotype, but we are a very friendly nation, with a strong welcoming tradition.
I encourage you to visit Ireland, not just on St. Patrick’s Day, but any day of the year. Check out the !iPass hotspots while you are there, and take your time to get to know the people of Ireland. You will be amazed how quickly you will make some new friends.
In the meantime, have a great St. Patrick’s Day.
Top 10 Hotspots in Ireland in a Google Map!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day from someone Irish everyday >>
Friday, June 25th, 2010
Barbara Nelson, CTO
I just got back from the 17th Wireless Broadband Alliance summit, in sunny San Diego. The event was co-located with the Wi-Fi Alliance, and during the first day there was a joint Wi-Fi Ecosystem Summit. At the summit, the Wireless Broadband Alliance also welcomed six new members, AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cisco, KT and Devicescape. (Korea Telecom had previously been a member of their WBA, but let their membership lapse for a while, when their focus moved away from Wi-Fi.)
It is hard to believe how much has changed in the WBA since iPass joined in 2008. At the time, the WBA was struggling to be relevant, whereas now it has a marquee membership list, and a new energy to take on a host of new projects, to support the needs of the new members.
So what is triggering the new interest in Wi-Fi? AT&T and Verizon were very clear that their motivation to join the WBA is to ensure that the Wi-Fi networks of the world will support 3G offload. Licensed spectrum is expensive, and the owners of that spectrum are very keen to find ways to offload traffic to unlicensed spectrum, such as the spectrum made available by Wi-Fi providers. Cisco is spearheading an initiative, currently called the Next-Gen Hotspot or Hotspot 2.0, which defines new protocols to enable seamless 3G authentication and secure connectivity on Wi-Fi networks, so that the 3G mobile operators may reliably and securely offload their traffic to the available Wi-Fi networks.
So, what does this mean for the world of Wi-Fi? At a minimum, it provides a compelling new business case to increase the number and quality of Wi-Fi hotspots. Korea Telecom has publicly stated that they plan to have over 42,000 hotspots by the end of 2011, to support their 3W strategy (smartphones that support WCDMA, WiMAX and Wi-Fi). This new growth in Wi-Fi will give iPass customers more places to connect, and a more reliable service, as Wi-Fi providers re-invest in their Wi-Fi infrastructure to satisfy the data-hungry demands of the new smartphones. This is very good news for us.
One very interesting question is how does this renewed interest in Wi-Fi as an alternative network for 3G offload dovetail with the trend we are seeing in the USA, where commercial Wi-Fi networks are being replaced by free Wi-Fi networks. But, that’s a topic for another blog. Stay tuned.
Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi at the WBA >>
Thursday, June 10th, 2010
Barbara Nelson, CTO
I spent the last few days at the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference, getting an updated perspective on Apple’s technologies. While there are certainly some very cool technologies, and we look forward to enhancing the iPass products to leverage these new capabilities, there were also some more subtle messages at WWDC. One of these subtle messages is with regard to Wi-Fi.
Buried in the hoopla on the iPhone 4, there is an interesting re-emergence of the importance of Wi-Fi. For many years, people had been predicting the demise of Wi-Fi. Who needs Wi-Fi when you have 3G?
At Apple WWDC, we saw that once again, when 3G isn’t up to the task, we rely on Wi-Fi. During the keynote, Steve Jobs didn’t even attempt to demonstrate his new phone on the cellular network. He ran into some networking difficulties on Wi-Fi, which were caused, ironically, by too many Wi-Fi base stations broadcasting competing radio signals. He said there were over 500 Wi-Fi access points in the main room alone, and didn’t count all the access points in the overflow rooms. When all the bloggers turned off their MiFi devices, the demo went smoothly.
Later on, Steve demonstrated a very cool capability, video chat using FaceTime. Oh, by the way, it only works on Wi-Fi.
Yet again, Wi-Fi comes to the rescue when the cellular networks cannot or will not support the increased data demands of these new applications. Isn’t it good that the Wi-Fi providers didn’t listen to the pundits predicting their early demise? So, when you are on the road, and want to video-chat to your family from your hotel room on your new iPhone, say thanks to all the Wi-Fi providers who are there to support you when the cellular networks let you down.
Wi-Fi re-emerges as important >>
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
Barbara Nelson, CTO
Part 2 of 2
On Tuesday, I talked about the iPhone and current features. Now, let’s talk about what’s to come.
The biggest enterprise feature to come in iPhone 4.0 (and the one that Apple has said very little about) is support for enterprise-hosted applications, and wireless application distribution via Wi-Fi or 3G. Apple has even said that this capability will be compatible with 3rd party management frameworks, such as Sybase, via a new Mobile Device Management API.
This is a huge step forward for Apple, as up to now, enterprises have been very limited in their ability to manage the proliferation of applications on to their end user devices. Users could download any application they liked from the app store, and the enterprise had no tools to manage this potential security risk.
So, based on this feature set, what is the next set of enterprise features that we should we expect to see from Apple? Apple is not very good at telling us what they are going to do, in advance of doing it. If any company likes the buzz around surprising all of us, it’s Apple. Entire industries seem to be springing up, whose sole purpose in life is to guess at Apple’s next move.
I don’t claim that my crystal ball is any more accurate than anyone else’s. However, based on what they have done to date, and based on how the enterprises are struggling to manage the consumer devices that are showing up in the office on a Monday morning, Apple’s move towards providing management tools is a good hint on where they are going.
Over the next few months, expect to see Apple build a formidable enterprise management solution, so that they can move from the ‘tolerated’ corporate device to the ‘welcomed’ corporate device. Whether they build this themselves, or partner with the industry leaders in this space remains to be seen, but we can be confident that they will close this gap, and make the iPhone as easy to manage as the other ‘enterprise-friendly’ smart phones.
Apple’s move towards the enterprise is an opportunity and a challenge for enterprises. Enterprises will have new tools to manage their end users, but they will have a growing community of employees demanding connectivity wherever they happen to be. By partnering with iPass, the enterprise can manage the mobility experience for their enterprise users on Apple devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, and now the iPad), balancing the connectivity needs and the costs for their always-connected end users, whether on the ground or in the air.
Making the iPhone a welcome Enterprise device >>
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
Barbara Nelson, CTO
Part 1 of 2
When Apple first delivered the iPhone, there were many complaints that it wasn’t an ‘enterprise-friendly’ device, and that label has stuck. But, as Apple has released newer versions of the iPhone OS, enterprise features have slowly but surely been added to the feature set. While the main focus of the iPhone platform (and its siblings, the iPad and the iPod Touch) is still on reaching out to consumers, and providing more and more reasons for consumers to go online and stay online, Apple hasn’t lost sight of a very large potential customer, the enterprise.
So, what moves has Apple made towards the enterprise so far?
The first area of focus has been around connectivity. 3G networks aren’t the only way for the iPhone user to get online. Enterprises have their own secure campus networks, and they would prefer their users to be on their network, when in range of the campus. Apple supports a broad array of Wi-Fi security methods and authentication protocols, so that iPhones and their siblings can connect to these secure campus Wi-Fi networks.
For the roaming user who needs access to corporate resources, Apple supports a variety of VPNs, with IPSEC and L2TP today, and SSL coming in iPhone 4.0. Apple also recognizes that stronger authentication may be needed to access enterprise resources, so support has been added for two-factor authentication using RSA SecurID or CryptoCard.
Once connected, Apple makes it easy to access the most common enterprise application — email. You can push email, calendar and contacts from Microsoft Exchange servers to iPhones, over 3G or Wi-Fi. The iPhone also enforces ActiveSync policies, such as remote wipe, certificate-based authentication, and passcode policies. If you are not a Microsoft Exchange shop, the iPhone supports IMAP, POP3, SMTP, CalDAV and LDAP, to integrate with standards-based email, calendar and contact servers.
To make the life of the IT Admin a little easier, Apple has developed an iPhone Configuration Utility, where IT can set the policies for all their enterprise users. Once set, the policy settings can be signed, and optionally encrypted. Configuration policies can be tied to a particular target device. Configuration policies can be distributed via a USB device, via email, or via the web. They can also be distributed over-the-air using the Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol.
In the upcoming iPhone 4.0, Apple will add some more enterprise features. As mentioned already, support for SSL VPNs is coming in 4.0. Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync integration is being enhanced to support multiple exchange accounts, and add an option to encrypt email (including attachments). A new data encryption API is being added, so that 3rd party applications can encrypt their sensitive data.
>> Read more tomorrow on 4.0 features and how Apple might make the iPhone more welcome by Enterprise >>
iPhone continues to knock at the enterprise door >>
