Fragmentation and consolidation continue to impact enterprise mobility

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010 Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor

According to the FCC’s 14th annual report, since 2003, wireless competition has decreased 32 percent. Less competition usually means less choice at more cost. The report also notes that the usage of wireless has shifted to more data-centric activities.  I would then guess that this gives an enterprise fewer choices in terms of services available in order to piece together an enterprise mobility strategy.

On the flip side, the enterprise is inundated with new devices and even more choices. IDC reported that first quarter smartphone market more than doubled from the same quarter a year ago.

Recent news has been around “fragmentation” (or not) of the Android platform, as there are multiple incompatible (or not) versions.  This reminds me of a bad horror movie in which the creature keeps breaking into multiple small pieces that each become a monster. This fragmentation of the markets within the device market (with glimmers of upcoming iPad competitors), is compounding the complexity nightmare for enterprise mobility. Now add in connection management clients from various carriers and access providers, and your mobile employees might not know where to start — when all they want to do is connect.

An enterprise is already seeing these devices in the workplace, whether or not its decided on individual vs. corporate liability for mobile devices. Your mobile workforce is looking for ways to be more productive and tools that fit their lifestyle. And now enterprises may be seeing less enterprise-grade services; from fewer vendors.

Each layer of complexity, from this fragmentation, adds more costs, not just in the cost of the new hardware, software and resources required to purchase these items, but in the resources and manpower in figuring out integrations, configurations and policies.

IT needs to have a strong enterprise mobility strategy that includes mobility “profiling” to try to rein in this complexity monster. What employee role is allowed to use devices with what variety of connection services? With more devices, but fewer services, IT needs to be very clear on what is included in their mobility infrastructure, but continue to assess how best to support their most mobile workers. You need to be able to update these profiles on the fly and get them to your workforce. And of course the ones you need to reach most are …out there…somewhere.

Tags: Android, enterprise mobility