Make me mobile

It doesn’t matter where you go these days, if you take a look around you are likely to see someone using a mobile device, whether it is a smartphone, a media tablet or a laptop. When it comes to business, being mobile gives us the ability to work from nearly anywhere we want, whenever we want. It is understandable then, that the significance of mobility in our everyday activities has become one of utmost importance, with vendors and businesses alike clearly embracing the development.The February 2010 iPass mobile workforce report states that the “definition of mobile employee continues to broaden with the addition of new devices and services. Once relegated to the business traveller, today every employee is a potential mobile employee”.It wasn’t that long ago that verbal and visual communication in the workplace assumed physical location. The Insight Research Corporation predicts that by 2012 most industries will have moved away from a fixed and location-centric work environment to a disseminated mobile world where workers are set up in the location where they are most effective. With increasing broadband data speeds, mobile voice services, wireless broadband, and mobile prices dropping, the limitations that made mobility unrealistic in the past are now seemingly irrelevant.Kelvin Hussey, General Manager of CallPlus, says people should be allowed to be more flexible: “The traditional nine to five work day is long dead. The home office works for the enterprise and the employee.”The options for mobile connectivity seem to have exploded overnight and IDC estimates that 70%, or possibly more, of enterprise data now resides in some form on mobile devices. A study conducted by the Telework Coalition revealed that 89 of the top 100 US companies offer telecommuting, with 58% of companies considering themselves to be operating in a virtual workplace, and 67% of all workers claiming to use mobile and wireless computing.One of the most exciting innovations is the smartphone. Only a recent addition to the mobility space, it is already holding its own with 15% of the global market share, and Gartner predicts it will stabilise at 80%.“It gives you the ability to have all your consumer lifestyle applications and your business applications with you permanently. The smartphone is the consumerisation of IT,” says Gartner Research Vice President, Geoff Johnson.Hussey agrees: “10 years ago we were dreaming about what is coming out now, and today it’s all about the smarts. People want one mailbox and one number, smartphones give them this.”According to Gartner, the most commoditised mobility asset currently is the Android, with high standardisation levels and a number of suppliers. A full open source software stack, the Android platform supports multi-tasking, web browsing, and search experience leveraging Google assets, such as Google Maps, Search or Gmail. It also integrates touch and hardware keys for navigation.“Smartphones may be the most popular mobility device right now,” Hussey states, “but Android applications are a big driver.”When we consider mobility, connectivity expenses seem to go hand-in-hand. Gartner estimates that 80% of companies will overspend on their wireless services in 2012. A reason for this is uncontrollable roaming charges, with employees’ mobile devices often used internationally, racking up huge roaming bills.“The price of roaming continues to be driven by the two biggest providers, and that’s not likely to change,” Hussey says, alluding to Telecom and Vodafone.Idle or infrequently used devices also generate monthly service charges, even after the equipment is discarded or the employee has left the company.A big factor contributing to overspending is expensive employee-purchased devices, showing the impact of the convergence of business and home mobiles.It is a common occurrence for people to purchase a cell phone, or other communication device, for personal needs and to then end up using the same device for business. As a consequence, companies are usually billed for these expenses. Not only does this have a financial impact, but the issue of security comes in to play as well.“The consumerisation of the mobility market is currently happening, giving users more flexibility,” says Cisco Systems Engineer, Gareth Taylor. “Security and IT managers now need to extend the security out to mobile devices.”Hussey emphasises that any time you provide access to a corporation’s mission critical systems, you run a security risk. “Businesses need to think of it in the same way as setting up a firewall for their system. It would be good to put handset passwords in place.”Gartner states that mobile services and devices create new opportunities for innovating business processes, client interactions and workforce collaboration. But with this comes new challenges for infrastructure standardisation, IT processes and policies, user support, and security. Three out of four organisations lack comprehensive formulised policies for dealing with the management or security of all their mobile devices.Managing mobility has certainly changed since the days of supporting one mobile application on one standard corporate-issued device.“Security is going to become more of a prominent issue in the mobility space. The more access users are enabled to have, the more vulnerable they are to hackers,” says Hussey.IT now needs to manage users through an efficient process that includes provisioning, updating, and eventually decommissioning users, devices and services. As technology in the mobile space is continually evolving, this can be a challenging task.A 2010 whitepaper by iPass provides 10 steps to building an enterprise mobility strategy:• Define all business goals and requirements: Determine what the company’s objectives are, such as, higher sales efficiency or better availability of key staff, what cases might support those goals, and the devices to go along with it.• Add the information technology view: Once business requirements are understood, you can add the IT view. Evaluate key corporate requirements for manageability, flexibility, and scalability.• Create a timeline for delivery: A detailed timeframe for delivery and service roadmap.• Create a preliminary budget: This will include a rough cost-to-serve envelope as a budgetary starting point.• List the risks and policy tools: Incorporate a full list of risks and policy tools used to mitigate them, as well as any device security requirements and applications that may be necessary.• Add it all up: Determine if the projected costs are aligned with the desired value of the mobility deployment.• Begin the vendor and technology selection process: Only when all of the preliminary work is done should IT management seriously begin selecting a vendor and technology. When you know what the end functionality and costs should look like, you have a much stronger place to start negotiations from.• Start with a test deployment: The final golive process should include a test deployment, followed by a wider rollout.• The wider rollout: Ongoing end-user education and communication is essential so that all parties can learn as they go.• Rinse and repeat: Always remember that the launching of a mobile initiative isn’t the end of the road. Services need to continually evolve to embrace new mobile technologies and functionality, while retaining the initial goals and objectives.Johnson believes that while New Zealand users are aggressive early adopters in the mobility space, affordability is still a problem, given the size of the market is substantially smaller than those overseas. Johnson states that this factor means we will continue to be characterised as a “fast follower”.There is no doubt that mobility is an extremely exciting space to watch, although Johnson, Hussey and Taylor all agree that mobile solutions will not replace fixed-line solutions.“You are always going to need your desktop solutions; mobile is supplementary to this,” Hussey states.Taylor agreed: “Mobile will always be complementary. Once back at your desk, it would be nice to combine the two. Being able to leverage the best of both worlds is an appealing thought.”As mobility advances, it provides us with more opportunities to be flexible and increases productivity through leveraging the network. While innovations like the smartphone are an exciting emerging trend, IT managers need to get smarter in the way they deal with the security challenges that come with borderless networking.We have now moved beyond solely achieving mobility, it’s time to start looking at how we protect it, in order to create a secure mobile space.