Category: Mobilize

Mobilize covers the range of issues facing IT leaders and team members in their efforts to support the business activities of an increasingly mobile workforce.

IT Security Can Look Like a Hero If It Leads the Charge to Establish Enterprise BYOD Policies

by , posted in Mobilize
Paula Musich
Paula Musich

Summary Bullets:

  • IT security groups should be proactive in establishing policies that govern the use of employee smartphones and tablets in the enterprise to improve their reputation as productivity enablers, rather than stumbling blocks.
  • Key considerations include what devices to allow, how corporate data and apps will be accessed, where data will reside, and what the users’ risk profiles are.

Some recent surveys suggest that while many enterprises are now allowing employees to use their own devices to access corporate networks and applications, few have established formal usage policies for those BYOD users.  One study published last month by security awareness training company KnowBe4 found that 71% of businesses allowing employees to use their own smartphones and laptops for work-related tasks did not have usage policies and processes in place to secure and support those devices.  This is the perfect opening for enterprise security and IT risk groups to seize the day and take a leadership role in defining the enterprise’s BYOD policy, setting themselves up as enablers, rather than roadblocks to improved employee productivity.  Continue reading “IT Security Can Look Like a Hero If It Leads the Charge to Establish Enterprise BYOD Policies” →

A Look Back on a Week of M2M Events

by Guest Author, posted in Mobilize
Kathryn Weldon
Kathryn Weldon

Summary Bullets:

·       On September 12th, Telefonica held an analyst conference in New York that focused on its ambitions and traction in M2M and featured a new high-profile customer – OnStar

·       On September 13th, Orange held an analyst conference in Brussels that focused on its ambitions and traction in M2M and featured a new high-profile customer – Qualcomm Life

M2M is still in its infancy when it comes to numbers of connections and revenues, despite the fact that it is a decade-plus old industry, with wireless POS and fleet management solutions running over networks since the dark ages of cellular connectivity. These days, M2M generates excitement because it captures the imagination as people think of all of the “things” in their lives that can possibly be connected. Global operators Orange and Telefonica are upbeat about the opportunity and chose the same week to hold analyst events focused on M2M. Continue reading “A Look Back on a Week of M2M Events” →

PaaS Offerings Needs MEAP Piece or Risk MBaaS Threat

by Charlotte Dunlap, posted in Mobilize
Charlotte Dunlap
Charlotte Dunlap

Summary Bullets:

  • Backend integration is a key component of mobile enterprise application development (MEAP) technology
  • Vendors should include MEAP as part of their PaaS discussions, or mobile backend-as-a-service (MBaaS)will become the interim solution

Back-end integration is the most critical component of MEAP technologies, enabled through platforms or IDEs that are designed to make it easy to connect workflow applications to backend systems. Vendors need to continue to focus energies in simplifying this piece of their mobile strategy, to ensure enterprise customer adoption of emerging mobile app development platforms. Until that happens, however, enterprise developers continue to meet their mobile app development needs primarily through home-grown platforms, and struggle with the cumbersome task of integration so that their mobile applications can properly access the data necessary to support the applications. Continue reading “PaaS Offerings Needs MEAP Piece or Risk MBaaS Threat” →

IT Service Providers Continue Mobility Focus: Are They a Threat to Mobile Operators?

by Kitty Weldon, posted in Mobilize
Kathryn Weldon
Kathryn Weldon

Summary Bullets:

  • It has taken awhile, but not only have large SIs such as Accenture, CSC, IBM, and HP finally realized that enterprise mobility is a substantial growth area, but mobile access (and mobile-powered business transformation) is also becoming increasingly integrated into their technology-oriented and vertical consulting and integration initiatives.  Even M2M is now a major focus.
  • Mobile operators are also focused on professional services and managed mobility for large enterprises and MNCs, where they would theoretically go up against the large SIs.  How do they differ?

Talking to the large SIs (e.g., Accenture, HP, IBM, CSC, T-Systems) makes it clear how important mobility has become as an enabler of business transformation, in addition to its traditional role as a way to ensure equal access to remote and traveling employees.  Mobile operators have recognized this for a long time, but SIs are starting to ramp up their initiatives in a major way.  It just took them longer to appreciate how important and transformative mobility is becoming.  With BYOD on everyone’s lips, and MDM and other ‘point’ solutions giving way to a view of providing secure, equal ‘anywhere, anytime’ access to corporate information to all endpoints regardless of technology, the perception of mobility is changing for many service providers, whether IT-focused or communications-centric. Continue reading “IT Service Providers Continue Mobility Focus: Are They a Threat to Mobile Operators?” →

Education is Needed to Assure End User Buy-in to BYOD policies

by , posted in Mobilize
Paula Musich
Paula Musich

The younger generation of smartphone and tablet users brings a false sense of security to all things cloud and mobility, trusting way too much in the security and intentions of apps providers, cloud purveyors, the Internet and even friends.  This brings even greater unease to security professionals charged with protecting corporate data as BYOD becomes pervasive in all sizes of enterprises.  A raft of articles in IT-focused publications exhort IT to put in place the proper policies and security controls to mitigate this new risk (as if they needed more risks to worry about) with regard to the use of employee-owned devices in the enterprise.  Continue reading “Education is Needed to Assure End User Buy-in to BYOD policies” →

MDM Vendors Look to Mobile Apps/Security Management for Differentiation

by Kitty Weldon, posted in Mobilize
K. Weldon
K. Weldon

Summary Bullets:

  • Mobile application management (MAM) became the ‘new’ buzzword in enterprise mobility in 2011/2012 as enterprises and service providers shift their focus from mobile device management (now somewhat commoditized) to mobile app development, delivery, and security.  A large set of relatively small vendors (many of whose names start with ‘App’) is selling solutions for app development, app and content management, and app security.  However, the market is now split into ‘pure-play’ MAM vendors (with a number of sub-categories and niches) and MDM vendors that have been adding some of these capabilities to enrich their core offerings.
  • From the channel perspective, mobile operators and IT service providers have taken note of this trend and are trying to make sense of yet another set of potential partners.  Service providers can resell MAM solutions, but they could also potentially strike more meaningful relationships with MAM vendors as platform providers for managed mobility services.  Or, they can stay with their core MDM partners and hope they are up to the task of adding MAM functionality.

MAM vendors include companies that may provide platforms for mobile app development but also focus on app delivery, ongoing management, and security.  They often help customers set up role/policy-based enterprise app stores and many feature app-wrapping technology that secures each individual app rather than the device.  Examples include AppCentral, AppBlade, App47, Appcelerator, Apperian, and Partnerpedia.  Worklight (acquired by IBM in 2012) provides “open standards-based app development with tools and a console for easy deployment and maintenance of mobile apps, as well as enterprise integration to enable secure device/server connectivity and secure device storage.”  Mocana and Nukona (the latter acquired by Symantec in 2012) focus more on the security side, providing ‘app-wrapping’ technology and enabling data access/authentication, usage controls, and protection policies such as per app file encryption and copy-and-paste prevention. Continue reading “MDM Vendors Look to Mobile Apps/Security Management for Differentiation” →

2G Re-Farming: How Does this Affect the Growth of M2M?

by Kitty Weldon, posted in Mobilize
K. Weldon
K. Weldon

Summary Bullets:

  • AT&T’s announcement that it will gradually (market by market) shut down its 2G network to reutilize spectrum resources for higher bandwidth technologies and applications (and that this re-farming will be complete by 2017) spurred controversy last week. Competitors implied that many M2M customers would be stranded and would either have to change providers or pay more to AT&T for 3G or even 4G connections.
  • AT&T notes that only 12% of all post-paid connections over its network are 2G today . While the make-up of these connections or how many of them are for M2M deployments are unknown, the general estimate in the market has been that at least 80% of worldwide M2M connections are on 2G networks and that this is still sufficient for the kinds of low bandwidth, infrequent data usage scenarios that still dominate the market.

Competitive operators have been the most vocal about AT&T’s plan. Those operators that do not plan to shut off 2G (or haven’t officially announced such plans) include Sprint and T-Mobile (along with the latter’s MVNO partner, RACO Wireless) , although T-Mobile is actually re-farming about 75% of its 2G spectrum but keeping about 5 MHz available for M2M and other 2G customers. Verizon has not announced any specific plans and is looking to other sources of new spectrum (such as its deal with several cable companies) to fuel its continued LTE build-out and ensure high-capacity and good performance on the new network. So Sprint and RACO appear to be excited about AT&T’s plan, because they intend to lure those 2G M2M customers who really have no need for an upgrade. Continue reading “2G Re-Farming: How Does this Affect the Growth of M2M?” →

Vendors Target Programs at Powerful Developer Brain Trust

by Charlotte Dunlap, posted in Mobilize
C. Dunlap
C. Dunlap

Summary Bullets:

  • Application platform vendors need to target developers with messaging and programs.
  • SAP is aiming for a broader developer audience via its new MADP partner program.

Middleware vendors realize that enterprise developers are at the center of a company’s decision making process in today’s innovation-centric organizations; therefore, they are tailoring messaging directly to the source.  Developers are driving more of the architectural and business-oriented decisions in the enterprise.  They’re not just a sweatshop pumping out code, but a vibrant brain trust capable of some serious innovation and thought leadership. Continue reading “Vendors Target Programs at Powerful Developer Brain Trust” →

With BYOD Backlash, TCO Questions Are Raised

by Kitty Weldon, posted in Mobilize
K. Weldon
K. Weldon

Summary Bullets:

  • Operators, MDM vendors, IT services companies, and everyone else in the enterprise mobility ecosystem has been talking about the huge and imminent rise of BYOD for a year or two.
  • In the real world, there appears to be a bit of a backlash, with some companies retrenching and questioning the alleged cost savings that accrue to a BYOD approach.

BYOD and IT consumerization are old news by now, with companies trying to accommodate their employees and save money at the same time.  The positioning of MDM software platforms and (to a lesser extent) TEM services over the last year as panaceas to deal with this ‘troubling’ trend has allowed a large number of companies in the enterprise mobility ecosystem to look gleefully to new revenues among customers that are looking for help in managing the costs and the inherent unmanageability/insecurity of personal devices. Continue reading “With BYOD Backlash, TCO Questions Are Raised” →

Documents, Not Just Operating Systems, Are Key to Mobility

by , posted in Mobilize
B. Shimmin
B. Shimmin

Summary Bullets:

  • A successful mobility campaign for collaboration players requires attention be paid to document synchronization, editing, and sharing.
  • These documents must follow users across multiple platforms and devices, not just in number but in kind.

Many of us in the analyst industry have watched momentum in the battle for the desktop swing back and forth between various operating systems, favoring from time to time brands such as Microsoft, Apple, and even Linux.  However, at all times in this ever-evolving battlefield, Microsoft has held the one key necessary to unlock (read, dominate) the enterprise.  That key, which has remained tucked up securely in the pocket of one Mr. Bill Gates from Redmond, Washington, is Microsoft Office. Continue reading “Documents, Not Just Operating Systems, Are Key to Mobility” →