Thursday, February 7th, 2013
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
The 2013 iPass/MobileIron Mobile Enterprise Report tells a story of the rise of BYOD, and with it increased frustration and loss of control by IT, and concern over rising mobile data costs. Results from our survey show that while Mobile IT brings with it a huge potential to improve workforce productivity, it also introduces significant new challenges for enterprise IT.
Our Infographic captures some of those changes and challenges:
Download the report >>
Register for the webinar >>
Rising mobile data costs with smartphones and tablets >>
Wednesday, February 6th, 2013
Chris Witeck, Director Product Marketing
We just recently announced the results of our annual Mobile Enterprise Report. Unlike our Mobile Workforce Report (which focuses on the mobile worker and is published quarterly), the Mobile Enterprise Report is an annual survey that focuses on senior level IT professionals and the trends impacting them and the Enterprises they work for. This year we teamed up with MobileIron to survey 477 IT professionals between December 2012 and January 2013.
As you can imagine this serves as a nice contrast to the Mobile Workforce Report- where we can compare trends as experienced by IT to those experienced by the workers themselves. We know from the Mobile Workforce Report just how important BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) has become to the workers, but how has BYOD impacted the policies that Enterprises have in place and what devices that are supported?
Part 1 of our Mobile Enterprise Report blog will focus on just this- BYOD Policies and Trends.
This year’s Mobile Enterprise Report is the second time we’ve had a chance to survey IT professionals and this allows us to compare responses from 2011 to what we collected at the end of 2012.
One question we asked is how corporate guidelines have changed in regards to personal devices. You can definitely see the trend shifting over just one year’s time to where less organizations say they don’t allow access from personal devices (26% in 2011 to 19% in 2012) and more saying they have changed their guidelines to be more accommodating to personal devices (47% in 2011 to 56% in 2012). In fact, if you add together those who say they have historically allowed access from personal devices to those who said they recently changed their guidelines to be more accommodating, you get 81% saying they allow access from personal devices. So this definitely mirrors the BYOD trends we see from the mobile workers.
One interesting wrinkle to this, while 81% say they accommodate personal devices, we asked in a separate question if the organization had established BYOD policies in place and 54% said yes. While this is encouraging to see the majority of organizations putting a policy in place, it is clear that there are quite a few organizations that accommodate personal devices but have yet to translate this to a formal BYOD policy. While having a policy in place is not a cure-all for managing costs and security, it can go a long way to make sure employees know what is expected of them.
The last point I’ll touch on in today’s blog is that with some of the questions we can definitely see regional variances at play. Something I’ve noticed when looking at user data as well as talking to our customers is that European customers are less likely to be supporting BYOD than customers in North America. That is something we see reflected in the data with regards to BYOD policies. North American organizations were much more likely to have a BYOD policy (58%) than a European organization (46%).
This is just a small portion of the data available in the report. Download the report to go deeper on these trends and others.
We will also be hosting an informative webinar to cover the details of the report with MobileIron. Be sure to check back tomorrow when we talk more about the highlights of this year’s Mobile Enterprise Report.
Webinar:
The Impact Mobile Workers and Devices have on your Enterprise. Make sure to register even if you cannot attend. We will send you the recording link.
BYOD In the Enterprise >>
Monday, January 21st, 2013
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
Without wireless Internet access, how much do you feel that your productivity is decreased?
We are now asking for input to our
Q1 2013 Mobile Workforce Survey.
This quarter’s survey covers the following topics and more:
- Satisfaction with your carrier
- Any surprises with mobile phone charges
- Wi-Fi vs. 3G/4G usage
- What and how many mobile devices do you use?
- What would you LIKE to purchase?
- BYOD issues – do you use a personal or company-provided smartphone and/or tablet for work?
Since we have been doing this for quite a few years, the trend data is a fascinating look into the changing habits of mobile workers and the increasing reliance on Wi-Fi access – what are the costs for access, apps that you use for work and preferred locations.
Take the survey >>
And for your time in doing the survey, you will be entered into a drawing for an Apple iPad! Take a few minutes right now.
Fill out the Mobile Workforce Survey >>
Friday, January 11th, 2013
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
All other news seemed to be drowned out what with the CES 2013 in Las Vegas. What’s fascinating are the new uses for Wi-Fi, beyond the mobile device technology like smartphones and tablets.
In the home:
Wi-Fi connected lights
Wi-Fi chips in the light bulbs allows users to turn lights on or off–either by room or individual bulb–through a free smartphone and tablet app.
Samsung debuts T9000 refrigerator with LCD and Evernote integration
The 9000 adds some much needed versatility by integrating Evernote into the Linux-based OS.
And more spectrum:
CES 2013: FCC plans to free up additional spectrum for WiFi
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced, “We’re moving to free up a substantial amount of spectrum for WiFi to relieve WiFi congestion and improve WiFi speeds at conferences, airports and ultimately in people’s homes.”
Help for IT in managing BYOD:
2013: The year Gigabit Wi-Fi arrives
new chipsets and routers were announced towards this standard. For IT, this means “…meeting the diverse needs of a large and increasing number of users with a similarly growing number of devices per user (driven in large measure by today’s broadening shift to BYOD [Bring Your Own Device]) and with a robust mix of application demands…”
More Wi-Fi for (and during) travel:
CES 2013: Wi-Fi gets on the road
Fancy switching on the engine using an app? Or replying to talking text messages sent to your phone purely by speaking? Or how about creating an in-car Wi-Fi network for your kid’s Google Nexus 7?
And safer mobile browsing:
Private WiFi takes its VPN mobile
Private WiFi debuts mobile apps for all the major smartphone platforms, just in time to protect you from the insecure public Wi-Fi at CES.
And for the young and young-at-heart: Toys!
Best Toys at CES 2013
Also to come this year from BeeWi is a set of iOS and Android device controlled Mini Coopers and a Fiat 500 toy as well as Windows Phone 8 versions of the remote control apps. Plus other interactive apps and devices.
Canon Power Shot N: Wi-Fi point and shoot
The camera is equipped with enhanced wireless capabilities that connect the point and shoot to a variety of mobile devices instantly, so users can upload and comment on their images in real-time while on-the-go using wi-fi connectivity.
Wi-Fi News and gadgets at CES 2013 >>
Tuesday, December 18th, 2012
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
Yes, I know that you are busy – frantically wrapping up projects before the holidays hit. But before you go, if you are in IT, click on the link and fill out our survey. And there’s a chance to win an iPad – it goes perfectly with the 2013 mobility trends!
Let’s not waste a minute – take me to the survey! >>
If you are still reading, let me give you a sneak peak at what we are learning in for the next Mobile Enterprise Report.
- 72% of enterprises support the iPhone
- 59% of enterprises support Android smartphones
- BYOD is having an impact; not just on devices: 55% of companies have changed their enterprise mobility guidelines to be more accommodating to personal devices because of the mobile devices.
- Almost a third of enterprises are providing/plan to provide business applications on their employees’ smartphones and/or tablets by means of having apps be downloadable from a private enterprise app storefront
And when we provide “Other” as a response to having you identify security problems that your enterprise is experiencing, I see that “Lost/Stolen Phone” is currently the top vote-getter. However in the Comments section, some survey responders put in…a phone number? Are we supposed to track that lost phone down?
Let us know your thoughts and what should be counted.
Trends in the Mobile Enterprise [survey] >>
Rising mobile data costs with smartphones and tablets >>
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