You Choose or You Lose
Monday, July 26th, 2010 Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
A few soundbites from a recent press interview to start this latest post:
- “Enterprises are finding it easier to adopt a multi-device policy for employees”
- “We have seen more and more enterprises selecting devices by influence of users’ preferences”
- “The main challenges in enterprise mobility are security and management”
You’d be forgiven for thinking that these comments came from an evangelical iPass employee, but you would be wrong. No, these comments came from Claudio Castelli, a senior analyst at Ovum in this article on ZDNet. As a technology provider it’s great to have a strong story to tell, but even better when someone else tells it for you!
Claudio makes some very interesting points , namely that from a device standpoint the world of enterprise mobility – once almost exclusively RIM’s domain – is becoming a much more level playing field. This isn’t just because the handsets themselves are becoming more enterprise ready, but also because a plethora of third-party software and services vendors are extending their capabilities to a broader range of more consumer-oriented devices. So a handset that may not quite be there from an enterprise standpoint, effectively gets the finishing touches from a device management or security perspective, from the likes of Sybase.
It is encouraging to see the broader industry recognise the significant challenges (and opportunities) created by the proliferation of devices within the enterprise. Obviously this is great news for iPass as we’ve built the Open Mobile Platform to be just the kind of open, device-agnostic mobility solution which enterprises require to cope with multi-device environments. Features like iPass Mobile Insight, which gives an enteprise visibility into device inventory, state and compliance will prove invaluable as companies look to get a grip on their mobile workforces, but equally the ability for the platform to integrate with other device management and third-party software ensures customers have choice….
And its choice that this ultimately boils down to. For too long employees have had a particular device forced on them; for too long enterprises have been locked into a particular carrier or set of management tools. The world of enterprise mobility has, to an extent, been characterised (and held-back) by a lack of choice. Claudio Castelli’s extremely shrewd observations point to what is essentially the ongoing democratization of mobility – for end-users AND enterprises.
Tags: enterprise mobility, Mobile Insight, smartphone
