Kathryn Weldon

Summary Bullets:

• Every year at its Connexion conference in Boston, Axeda, a provider of cloud-based M2M application solutions, presents an ever-growing scale (now reaching nine levels) that measures the sophistication of M2M solutions, ranging from 1) unconnected to 2) connected, 3) serviceable, 4) intelligent, 5) optimized, 6) differentiated, 7) eco-friendly, 8) collaborative/socialized/multivendor, and 9) cross-industry solutions.  Each year, Axeda adds new levels.
• Axeda also showcased several end users’ actual M2M deployments.  Where were they on this scale and can we deduce anything about the current trajectory of M2M from these real-world case studies?

End users at the Axeda Connexion conference included Getinge Group, which provides hospital systems, extended care and infection control.  In 2003, the company envisioned a system to provide a service for remote monitoring of its equipment, but it ran into technology and regulatory challenges along the way and had difficulty building a model that made the ROI self-evident.  Eventually, the company connected the end customer (hospital) though a web portal and smartphone app, offering a value prop of unprecedented knowledge via online troubleshooting, access to historical data and statistics for production planning, and real-time equipment status.  It was in production in 2011; as of 2012, it still found take-up slow among its customers, especially in low-cost labor countries that did not ‘get’ the value prop.  In the future, it plans to add data mining.  Overall, it took Getinge eight years to get to the ‘connected,’ ‘serviceable’ and ‘intelligent’ stages – essentially reaching level 4 (out of 9) on the Axeda model.

In another example, GE Gas Engines realized if it could save just 10% of its customers’ costs (in this case, savings were achievable due to more optimal fuel usage, productivity enhancements and CapEx reduction), the company could save a huge amount over time.  Over a 15-year life, these savings reached $30 million, $66 billion, $63 billion, $27 billion and $90 billion, respectively, for its aviation, healthcare, power, rail and oil and gas customers.  GE is also involved in asset and operations optimization, with a software center of excellence dealing with big data analytics.  GE is approximately at level 5 in the Axeda model (i.e., its M2M solution is ‘optimized’).

Diebold, a well-known equipment leasing company with a large base of ATM machines, was dealing with margin erosion and increasing competition and needed to change its business model to generate incremental revenue.  It saw a way to evolve (with a vision that involved stepping through the M2M levels up to connected, serviceable and intelligent solutions) through remote servicing of its ATM machines.  Remote software updates, product improvements and replacement of onsite maintenance have yielded increased the availability and uptime of its ATMs.  Over 50% of the ATM service base is now remotely managed, with a 25% reduction in on-site service calls.  It is essentially at level 4 or 5 of the model (‘intelligent’ and on the way to ‘optimized’).

Axeda’s model is useful for looking at the potential of M2M to change business processes, save money, enhance productivity and even generate new service revenues through entirely new lines of business.  It is clear, however, that most of today’s M2M deployments have just begun to live up to their eventual potential.  This shows a bit of a disconnect between the very optimistic positioning of the supplier ecosystem and what is actually being done in the real world.  We still have a long way to go, but we are getting there.

Kathryn Weldon

Summary Bullets:

• New managed mobility services announcements were made this week and last by U.S. and European service providers, T-Mobile USA and BT
• T-Mobile USA is adding a second MDM platform – SOTI Mobile Control – (in addition to its recent launch of MobileIron) for mobile deployments

While T-Mobile’s new service shows a progression from its former stance of simply reselling third-party vendor solutions without much “skin in the game”, the carrier is now offering a fully managed service, more in line with what AT&T and Verizon have been offering for TEM/logistics, MDM, MAM and increasingly, mobile security, for some time. BT, on the other hand, is viewing the in-office wireless LAN as an area just as rife with complications from employees bringing in their own tablets and smartphones as it is for companies with cellular-based mobile workers. Most mobile operators aren’t addressing the WLAN side of the equation as they make their money on the cellular side from devices and service plans; on the other hand, BT does not own its own mobile assets but is more of a pure-play provider of managed mobility services and consulting.

On a related note, recent conversations with Sprint and Vodafone bring home the fact that while BYOD is still a major trend, user concerns have changed. While a few organizations are on either extreme, i.e., they either forbid BYOD altogether or they totally embrace it, most companies are somewhere in the middle. They are developing straightforward ways to either literally pay back employees for voice and data sent from their personal devices through expensing mechanisms, or are providing stipends. Many are also allowing only a subset of devices to be purchased and used for business purposes. But due to the fact that few customers are doing exactly the same thing when it comes to BYOD, efforts to create a standard set of BYOD services, including device and service bundles coupled with consulting deliverables to help in policy development, in conjunction with MDM, containerization and in some case dual persona options, have not really paid off for the operators. If the customers are not standardized, it is hard to address all their use cases in a single set or tiered suite of BYOD services.

It is clear that we are still finding our way in addressing BYOD, but it no longer seems to be as difficult a problem as it once was. Most companies have accepted some form of employee choice and device ownership and are principally turning to MDM and containerization to keep these users and their devices from causing unwarranted security breaches.

Mike Fratto

Summary Bullets:

• Application delivery controllers are an integral part of your application stack.  They need to be treated as first-class citizens and incorporated into any hybrid cloud strategy.
• Matching an ADC, supported cloud service and platform, and integration strategy is critical to enabling applications that can run anywhere with ease.

One of the motivating factors for virtual application delivery controllers (ADCs) is the ability to include the entire set of servers and services that make up an application into a logical group that can be moved easily from physical and virtual servers to a public cloud.  If you take the time to tune your ADC for a particular application running in your data center and you want to move it to a cloud service, your only options for an ADC are limiting yourself to the cloud services that can run your virtual ADC or using the cloud provider’s load balancing service, which may even be using products that are far more capable than the features exposed to customers, but the result is basic load balancing as a service and not much else.  Running a vendor’s virtual ADC in a cloud environment requires that the vendor supplies a VM built and tested on that cloud service and offered through the service’s application store.

What you really want to package up in your application is not a pre-configured ADC VM, but an ADC configuration that can be applied to an existing ADC.  I’ve never been a fan of the “move VMs around” hybrid cloud strategy.  Converting VMs from one platform to another can be error-prone, and then you have to move hundreds of gigabytes over the WAN and hope it all works.  What makes more sense is to use the base VM images on the cloud provider and move the applications and data to the VM.  That includes the ADC configuration.

When evaluating ADCs, take a careful look at the ability to programmatically apply initial and updated configurations – particularly the latter.  Any product that saves configurations as a flat file can be exported and imported.  The process is usually like this: 1) develop and test the initial configuration; 2) export it to a file; 3) modify it for another instance; 4) import it into the new appliance; 5) go to Step 3, rinse and repeat.  That works fine when you have configurations that do not change often, but that is not the cloud way.  Cloud computing is dynamic and application components have to respond to dynamic change.

What you want is a programmatic way to update a configuration across a number of instances that is nimble and can be applied to live ADCs without having to reboot them.  ADC vendors’ programmatic APIs are being developed and you might find them in varying stages of completion, but what you need to research is the amount of programmatic access that will be available and in what form (such as an SDK library, RESTful API, or remote procedure calls).  When you can match an ADC with an integration strategy and a cloud service, you’re ready to move to a hybrid cloud.

Brian Washburn

Summary Bullets:

• tw telecom is gearing up to release its Constellation Platform, promising click-and-connect links to third-party data centers and resident cloud providers.
• Constellation Platform details are still under wraps, but tw telecom will likely succeed in raising the bar for customers’ on-demand service expectations.

When it comes to cloud services, the largest U.S. incumbent network providers are all-in: AT&T with its Synaptic line of services, Verizon with its acquisition of Terremark, and CenturyLink with its acquisition of Savvis. Many smaller providers by contrast are split on their cloud services approach. Windstream and EarthLink Business are examples of network providers that are developing data centers and cloud services in-house. Sprint’s entry into the cloud has been through a partnership with CSC. However, there are also competitors such as tw telecom and Lightpath that choose to stay away from building and selling in-house cloud services: They would prefer to be impartial agents serving a large audience of third-party data center and cloud services providers. Of these, tw telecom in particular has invested in network tools, with the goal of becoming a more flexible network provider of cloud connectivity.

tw telecom began executing on a three-part plan to build Intelligent Networks back in 2012. The provider first introduced its Enhanced Management feature, which provided customers with end-to-end network visibility and control. It followed on with the release of its Dynamic Capacity feature, which gave customers control over point-to-point bandwidth between two established locations, with the ability to dial the capacity up and down as needed.

tw telecom is now gearing up to release its third and final phase, a feature it is calling the Constellation Platform. Where Dynamic Capacity offered flexible bandwidth between two established locations, tw telecom’s Constellation Platform promises to let enterprise customers set up secure connections into data centers on a “click and connect” basis. With the cooperation of data center operators attached to tw telecom’s networks, it will even be possible for customers to click and connect directly into resident cloud applications. There are still many details for tw telecom to disclose as it readies Constellation Platform for commercial services, such as:

• Whether on-demand bandwidth will be fully dedicated (with class of service used to prioritize internal traffic)  or shared (with class of service determining overall traffic performance);
• Whether bandwidth will be provisioned to a customer’s end location, or via an in-network gateway connecting the customer’s enterprise network;
• What top-end limitations there are for receiving on-demand bandwidth into data centers;
• How many data centers and their resident cloud applications providers will sign on for full end-to-end on-demand provisioning at Constellation Platform’s launch; and
• How tw telecom will package and price this new feature for customers once it becomes generally available.

tw telecom has begun demonstrating a prototype of its Constellation Platform in action, with a public debut of the prototype feature taking place in New York City this week (June 10-13). While questions remain of what the final version of Constellation Platform will look like, tw telecom is definitely doing its part to raise the bar on customer expectations of what it means to be a flexible, nimble provider of network services.

Gary Barton

Summary Bullets:

• Ignoring the impact of smartphones in the workplace is no longer an option.
• A well constructed BYOD policy will deliver security and productivity benefits.

BT has this week gone to market with its latest bring your own device (BYOD) proposition, its BT Advise BYOD Quick Start suite, which includes monitoring and security services. BT’s launch has been backed by an accompanying white paper ‘Beyond Your Device’. The conclusions of this report provide further proof that (as this writer has previously argued) enterprises can no longer afford to be without a BYOD policy. The research suggests that around 50% of employees are now formally allowed to use their mobile devices at work, but that actual usage rates are significantly higher. In other words, most companies now know that preventing mobile device usage is a losing battle. What is more significant for enterprises, however, is that 60% of the surveyed IT managers felt that using smart devices in the workplace increased worker efficiency and 84% of IT managers surveyed believe that a BYOD policy confers a competitive advantage, with 31% suggesting that a BYOD policy gives a ‘significant advantage’. Of employees surveyed, 59% stated that they use personal devices to access files from company servers. With productivity advantages on one side and real security risks on the other, perhaps the biggest surprise in BT and Cisco’s white paper was that the research suggested that the number of enterprises with an official BYOD policy in place has fallen.

Even given the benefits of having a BYOD policy, it is, perhaps, understandable that a large number of enterprises do not have one. Some enterprises will argue that a blanket ban is a policy, and it is arguable that this is a more secure policy that helps to prevent mobile devices being used by employees to bring home data that should not leave corporate premises. Some IT managers highlight compliance concerns as a reason for not creating a BYOD policy. However, these concerns go against normal human behaviour. Banning smartphone usage in the vast majority of circumstances is a largely futile gesture – as any trip to the cinema will highlight. Compliance issues can be harder to judge and there will be circumstance where a total ban is the right option, no matter how difficult to enforce. However, it is also becoming clearer that a well written BYOD policy can form part of a broader compliance strategy. BYOD and mobile device management (MDM) are often viewed separately. However, as providers such as BT, Vodafone, Orange, Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom (amongst others) have shown with solutions delivered over the last 12 months is that BYOD and MDM are essentially now the same thing. If part of MDM is seen as control and visibility over mobile device access to the corporate network then regulating employees own devices must be part of that strategy. Enterprises should also be aware that corporate WiFi should be seen as part of the solution. As well as the cost saving possibilities of services such as voice over WiFi, driving mobile devices to the corporate WiFi, both for employees and guests/visitors, increases the potential for controlling access.

John Marcus

Summary Bullets:

• The UK government’s G-Cloud Programme has suffered from setbacks, leading to limited uptake so far.  However, two recent developments – the commencement of the new G-Cloud iii framework, doubling the number of approved CloudStore suppliers, and the confirmation by the government last month of its ‘cloud first’ procurement strategy – should jumpstart British public sector migration to the cloud.
• Increased cloud adoption by government organizations, and indeed the high-level policy directive behind it, should have a knock-on effect within the enterprise market, first in semi-state and non-profit organizations and then increasingly in SME and corporate enterprises.

The G-Cloud Programme is a cross-government initiative led by two UK cabinet ministers (Justice and Home Office) as part of the official Government ICT Strategy, designed to leverage public cloud resources to reduce public sector spending and consolidate data centres.  The initial focus is on introducing cloud ICT services into government departments, local authorities and the wider public sector via a new procurement framework for IT services.  These services can then be reviewed and purchased through the G-Cloud’s CloudStore, which offers over 7,000 services from more than 700 suppliers in the areas of infrastructure (IaaS), software (SaaS), platform (PaaS), and specialist services.

The new G-Cloud iii framework has expanded the number of these ‘specialist services’ to include categories for identity services, service integration and service management tools and software support, with a number of SIs and application providers doubling the approved supplier list.  Critics from the ‘pure cloud’ world complained that large consulting firms were now diluting the mix, as it was those high-cost firms and their premises-based outsourcing models that the government was looking to move away from.  While those concerns are valid, it is also important to note that availability of supplementary cloud professional services (consulting and integration) is a major factor in completing more significant cloud migrations (i.e., IaaS rather than single application SaaS) and consultants, SIs and large software vendors have actually accounted for a significant amount of G-Cloud business so far.  According to the programme’s running tally of cloud purchasing, major players such as Atos, IBM, Microsoft, PA Consulting and Symantec are among the successful suppliers over the last year, along with significant wins for integrators Prolinx, Agilisys, Valtech and Emergn.  At the same time, smaller technology and service providers, encouraged by the government to join the framework, account for 80% of the 708 total suppliers in the CloudStore, where they benefit from a (more) level playing field than in the past.

Since it launched in Q1 2012, the G-Cloud’s CloudStore has still only generated 22 million GBP in cloud computing sales so far, but this modest rate of spending is set to increase.  By expanding the types of services included and more than doubling the number of suppliers involved, capacity and choice have been expanded significantly.  More importantly, the government has laid down the law in terms of its ‘cloud first’ policy, mandating that central government organizations consider and fully evaluate potential cloud solutions before considering other options.

This policy, which is also being ‘strongly recommended’ (but not mandated) to the rest of the public sector, should serve as a catalyst for adoption, with the central government serving as a role model for local government, health, education and eventually the private sector.  If the government, with its bureaucratic processes, high-level security requirements and extremely broad information and technology requirements can successfully adapt to cloud computing (and realize true savings, which are also being tallied by G-Cloud), perhaps any organization can.  These two developments – G-Cloud iii and the confirmation of the ‘cloud mandate’ – should act as a spur for more widespread adoption, aided by the changing attitudes of UK enterprises.  While a number of surveys over the last couple of years have shown UK cloud adoption trailing the US by a significant margin, a new study has found that 70% of SMEs believe that adoption of the cloud “will be an important factor to contribute to the growth of their business in the next 12 months.”

Sandra O’Boyle

Summary Bullets:

• Identity management solutions are traditionally associated with hardware tokens and passwords, and while these continue to be used and enhanced, they do not work for everyone (e.g., hardware tokens offer better assurance but can be expensive, and it can take time to ship a new token if someone loses one).  Passwords will continue to be widely used, but remembering multiple passwords, for both personal and business use, requires keeping them simple or using the same ones over and over – which in itself defeats the whole purpose of security.
• Some enterprises are starting to move towards soft token multi-tenanted solutions that require multiple-factor authentication, yet are globally available in nature, flexible (with no limit on devices and options) and include authentication apps for smartphones and iPads.  Service providers such as Verizon are offering identity management services based on a multi-tenanted authentication platform that is hosted and managed by the service provider in its data center; this helps to keep costs down.  This approach is being positioned by service providers as ‘identity-as-a-service’ where companies pay a per-user fee.  In the future, Google and others will also be experimenting with biometrics and facial recognition as part of identity proofing and securing access to devices, but these are still some way off from enterprise reality.
• The use of a multi-tenanted authentication server provides an easy-to-use management and reporting interface and a flexible price model, compared to the majority of two-factor authentication providers which offer a traditional on-premises solution without multi-tenancy.  These solutions can certainly be used in a cloud context, but they will be required to run either on the customer site, resulting in cost and complexity for the cloud service provider, or in the service provider’s data center, which can also result in cost issues because the solution will not be multi-tenanted.

Key technology market trends are driving customer demand for better identity management solutions, including mobile data usage growth coupled with BYOD (which increases the need for secure data access) and the shift to using applications in the cloud (for onboarding, scaling and maintaining control).  In addition, there are business drivers at play, as organizations can react and move more quickly by giving employees and partners wider secure access to key applications and systems that improve collaboration, differentiation and time to market.  Last but not least, a key imperative for many customers is regulatory compliance.  Do they have the right controls and policies in place to meet audit criteria?  While many operators and managed security providers are also looking at these issues, Verizon brings strong security credentials and vertical expertise with identity support for more than 125 million users globally, and it is especially strong in supporting identity programs for governments around the world as well as U.S. government agencies and healthcare.  Verizon has also earned the Identity, Credential and Access Management (ICAM) Level 3 certification.

At their recent industry analyst day in London, Verizon said identity services were driving huge growth and a healthy pipeline of over $350 million for its Universal Identity Services (UIS) solutions.   Verizon’s UIS solutions appeal to customers looking for cost-effective multi-factor authentication, easy enrollment and credential activation on both corporate and employee-owned devices.  The authentication includes using something the user knows, something they have, or something they are, and the ‘as a service’ approach helps reduce both CapEx and operating costs.  It also adds reasonable agility in being able to offer secure access to new suppliers and partners a lot more easily than in the past.

Kathryn Weldon

Summary Bullets:

• CTIA 2013, held last week in Las Vegas, was explicitly not about the enterprise, since that is still the domain of the fall CTIA show, MobileCon, until 2014.
• However, in addition to a few enterprise announcements (see CTIA 2013: M2M With a Splash of Enterprise Mobility, May 24, 2013), there were also two sets of emerging technology awards given to enterprise solutions; one set was for Enterprise Cloud/Mobility and the other for Enterprise Security, Fraud and Privacy. Is this yet another way to derive a few meaningful enterprise insights from CTIA?

The following vendors and products won awards at CTIA under the Emerging Technology program:

Emerging Tech Award Winners – Enterprise/Cloud Mobility

• LogMeIn, Cubby
• Canvas, MyCanvas
• Averail, Averail Access

Cubby is a secure, cloud-based document management/collaboration system for sharing/editing documents within workgroups, and features both client side and data side encryption, remote mobile lockout if desired or necessary, and multiple synchronization options. It’s positioned as similar to Box or DropBox, but with more security and unlimited synchronization. My Canvas allows any smartphone to be used in place of paper-based forms used for data entry, and allows businesses to create custom mobile apps that generate reports on this data. The data can then be shared with their customers via an Internet portal. Averail Access is a mobile content solution for the enterprise that provides employees an intuitive mobile app to access, manage and share business information without sacrificing enterprise security and control. It links directly to Sharepoint and Office 365 with support for Office docs, pdfs, images, video and audio files.

Emerging Tech Award Winners – Enterprise Security/Fraud/Privacy

• Red Bend Software, TRUE Solution for BYOD
• Fixmo, SafeZone with Secure Gesture Authentication
• mSignia, Behavioral Enhanced Risk based Authentication and Security

TRUE is an end-to-end solution for mobile device manufacturers and service providers to create and manage dual-persona mobile devices that are “TRUsted by the Enterprise” for employee use. It includes Red Bend’s full suite of products for mobile software management and mobile virtualization, including its secure Type 1 mobile hypervisor dual persona solution. Red Bend and Samsung are currently trialing a TRUE version of the Samsung Galaxy S III. SafeZone Secure Gesture Authentication features Fixmo’s defense-grade secure workspace (container) that is encrypted, contained and managed by IT independent of the device itself, and which has recently been enhanced with the ability to create a strong passcode using a fluid free-form gesture on a touchscreen; the gesture cannot be easily replicated and Fixmo claims it is both stronger and easier to use than traditional passwords. Behavioral Enhanced Risk Based Authentication and Security leverages patented technology from mSignia that “infuses behavior” in order to provide four factor authentication, (i.e., what you have, know, are, and do). Knowledge of the user (behavior, user location and user secrets) is used to identify the unique combination of the device and the user that customizes it. In BYOD environments mSignia claims this authentication method is truly unique and secure.

Some of these award participants were unique, while others offer similarly themed advances to existing security, BYOD and content management solutions. The awards prove that the enterprise mobility ecosystem is still coming out with differentiated and innovative solutions for the enterprise customer (as well as for the systems integrator and mobile operator channels that will need to sort through and potentially resell some of these offers).

Tim Dillon

Summary Bullets:

• BYOD is a distraction that prevents companies from thinking clearly about mobility.  Companies seeking to drive benefits from mobility within the organization are those that have moved beyond the ‘which device are you using?’ discussion.  Instead, the ones creating efficiencies, competitive advantage and positive change are those that have concentrated on mobilizing business processes – sales, marketing, suppliers, internal communications and executives.
• Organisations still struggle with business cases for mobility; for many, the starting point has been a CEO lasciviously fondling an iPad and wanting to use it at work.  For an effective mobility deployment, companies need to create employee profiles, risk assessments and use-case scenarios that are holistic in nature and span devices, policy, infrastructure, applications and security.

As Advisory Analyst in Asia-Pacific to the Enterprise Mobility Exchange, I had the pleasure of chairing the two-day inaugural Asia-Pacific event held in Singapore during April 2013.  This post attempts to capture the key areas of discussion and highlight important takeaways for all IT managers struggling with the challenges of mobility.

Asia-Pacific enterprises are no different than their global cousins,  and yet…: As you will read, many of the issues confronting Asia-Pacific companies are similar to those being addressed by others elsewhere.  What does make Asia-Pacific different as a region is the exhilarating growth in smart device activations, the ridiculously huge size of the market and the relatively young population base under 30 in many countries throughout the region.  These factors push Asia-Pacific to the front of the mad rush to embrace mobility around the globe.

Mobility excites and frustrates in equal measure: The ubiquitous and personal nature of mobile devices brings a different dynamic to enterprise technology decisions and deployments, making it harder for companies to assess mobility initiatives pragmatically.  For many employees, the smartphone and/or tablet are integral to their private life; apps, communications, access, media, cloud and compute are wrapped within varied degrees of personalisation.  These devices create challenges as they move into the enterprise environment, particularly when the instigator of the deployment is a senior executive or CEO clutching their personal device and demanding to use it at work.  Regardless, there is an implicit (sometimes irrational) belief that mobility, even if poorly executed, will bring benefits to the organisation; some are just not sure what or how.

IT does not always ‘own’ mobility: For many companies, the genesis of a mobility strategy is outside the IT group; the owners are line-of-business executives or groups that do not always have an in-depth understanding of the intricacies of technology deployments and issues.  Instead, these groups are focusing on mobile deployments to meet a business need; traditional IT business cases and architectures are not always considered and reflected in deployments.  There was a considered view that CIOs and IT directors need to be more proactive in managing the mobility landscape (similar to other parts of the IT environment) rather than reactively picking up the mess when it goes wrong.

Mobility is not about mobility… it’s about the business: There was a clear understanding that true value lies in supporting the business, particularly when focused on mobilising processes around one or more of the following:

• Customer engagements – e.g., delivering services to customers outside of normal office hours or to their own homes;
• Internal efficiencies – e.g., processing vendor invoices or employee forms;
• Bringing new products and services to market – e.g., using mobile applications and delivery to create disruptive services;
• Improved communications & collaboration – e.g., enabling true work-from-anywhere architectures for employees and customer engagements.

BYOD and CoIT: No discussion on mobility is without reference to the trend around BYOD (‘bring your own device’) and the ‘consumerisation of IT’ (i.e., the entry of consumer technology into the business IT environment), a polarising topic with delegates either embracing it wholeheartedly or seeking ways to arrest its progress inside their company.  However, for all organisations present, BYOD was a legitimate force impacting on their organisations.  A pragmatic approach was favoured by many present: assess their business priorities; determine which roles and functions were best suited to mobility; and develop employee policies that support either BYOD or corporate-liable device environments.  Regardless, many acknowledged that CoIT had heightened the expectations placed upon their IT groups and functions, creating greater operational stress.

Apps, not security, the biggest challenge: Companies face a range of issues from effective policy to security and business case development.  However, for many present, the most significant issue was that the rapid pace of development within the mobility space renders projects and initiatives obsolete – even when using an Agile apps development model.  Couple this with the poorly understood lifecycle management requirement of mobile apps and it is unsurprising many companies expressed concerns regarding the effectiveness of their mobile apps strategies.

Hybrid apps rule: The mobile apps discussion flowed into related territory around whether native or HTML5 was a more effective development option.  The majority present favoured a hybrid approach with critical, high-performance applications being developed natively (mostly in-house) and less performance-demanding apps based around HTML5.  In response to the costs and complexities of apps development, many present were keen on discussing the concept of ‘disposable apps’ for non-core initiatives.

Security: MDM is rapidly commoditizing, and for many players, it is a race to the bottom.  Businesses expect security, but unless their operating environment requires it (and by this I mean legally demands it), too often security is a box ticking exercise.  At least, it is until the solution is deployed, costs far more than expected on a per-seat basis and typically degrades the user experience.  Then it is a nuisance.

Organisations need to approach mobility with a focus on business outcomes rather than treating mobility as an isolated technology solution.  They must be clear around business value and outcomes, create measurable metrics around KPIs and TCO, and ensure that any vendor assessment process is robust enough to ensure longevity of supply in a rapidly changing environment.  Mobilization of business processes will become the most critical component of enterprise mobility.