Making Mobility Strategic in 2008

Necessity is the mother of invention. You've seen it before—with PCs, cell phones, Palms and Blackberries. These useful productivity technologies emerged in a grass roots fashion as individuals and departments latched on to new ways to be productive and stay in touch. And each time, what began as a good idea quickly grew into a significant recurring expense that would spiral out of control unless it was centralized and standardized.

I submit that the same thing is happening in mobile computing and communications. And this time it's at an accelerated pace—driven by personal benefits that outweigh professional gains. This goes beyond the Blackberry to include the iPhone, the Google Android and countless new handheld devices, and beyond Wi-Fi to include 3G and WiMAX access.

Since the costs for these products and services flow through expense reports, you are probably underestimating the overhead that your company is already incurring for these individually adopted devices. Not only are you paying the hard costs for 3G subscriptions, hotspot day passes and international roaming, but the soft costs as well.

Consider how much time users are wasting configuring their devices for use with workplace applications, or the downtime they experience when their solutions fail. What's more, unbeknownst to most device users, they are creating security holes that can lead straight into the network. Unfortunately, the Help Desk can't help.

This is the year to get this runaway train back on track. It's the year to take control of mobility in order to save your company's money and improve its effectiveness. With the talk of economic recession increasing, the time is right to propose a centralized mobility management solution that gives users around the world a single solution, provides the tools to efficiently manage both connectivity and mobile devices, and makes your costs more visible, predictable and affordable.

During 2008 and beyond, iPass will be offering counsel through this newsletter and our website on how to get strategic about mobility, and we encourage you to contact your iPass Account Executive. He or she will gladly provide information about our mobility management services, as well as advice on how to approach this daunting problem in your specific environment. With over a decade of experience in enterprise mobility and thousands of enterprise customers worldwide, we believe we can help you make your company more mobile and more efficient at the same time.

Wishing you all a happy and prosperous 2008.

Ken Denman
Chairman and CEO
iPass