Our customers are telling us that they want to look at Android and they’re doing so more frequently than ever before. It’s no surprise as consumers continue to snatch up Android devices in order to take advantage of the seemingly ever-expanding number of apps in the Google Apps Marketplace, new operating system capabilities and the availability of Android devices across networks.

But the question is: are Android devices “good corporate citizens”? Top of mind for IT is security and ease of management. Up to now, Android has not enabled most ActiveSync policies, which is the cost of entry into enterprise-readiness. Additionally, OEMs have enabled different capabilities in their devices, which has led to some fragmentation.

With Froyo (Android 2.2) things change. Many ActiveSync policies have been enabled, though not all. I would say that what Android 2.2 provides is pretty close to the capabilities of iPhone 3.0 over a year ago, which got the iPhone on many enterprise lists of approved devices. That said, Android 2.2 is not available yet, so it remains to be seen how the OEMs will choose to implement its capabilities. Clearly Android will get there – we just have to wait to see when and how!

You can read more on Android and its potential for entering the enterprise, in this CIO Update story.

Last week kicked off with a bang as Steve Jobs took to the stage in San Francisco to announce the latest iPhone and the innovative capabilities it provides. Touting more than 100 new features, including FaceTime video calling and a very high resolution retina display, the iPhone 4 is poised to live up to its “game changer” billing by Apple.

Its impact will undoubtedly be felt by the enterprise as consumers’ fascination with the iPhone continues to grow. Companies can expect their employees to request – and yes, demand – support for the iPhone and other Apple devices. Enterprise Mobile customers are already gearing up to address user demand. They are piloting iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices – all based on the iPhone operating system, or iOS – carrying out proofs of concept for some very innovative mobility projects.

The latest enhancements will further drive iPhone adoption and provide greater choice for users. Those changes, plus advancements we can expect from Android and Windows Phone 7, are overwhelming IT. How can they effectively support technology they haven’t had a chance to use? Without an understanding of the best practices and processes needed to plan and roll out enterprise-scale deployments, CIOs are left to figure out for themselves – through trial and error – how to integrate very diverse platforms into their computing environments.

Rather than back away from the challenges, CIOs need to face them head-on. One proven, cost-effective alternative to handling all aspects of a mobility initiative in-house is to work with outsourcers. Our customers tell us they don’t have time to become mobility experts. That’s why they count on us to complement their skills and knowledge.

The mobility landscape is very dynamic, with devices and platforms changing at a dizzying pace. The rapid rate of change, coupled with an expanding mobile workforce, means that IT can expect to face increasingly greater challenges as it attempts to keep up. Expert services can provide some peace of mind.

A new white paper from Enterprise Mobile describes how companies can validate that the iPhone platform addresses user, technical and business requirements. “Certifying the iPhone to Ensure a Successful Deployment” is available for free download now. The paper outlines steps companies should take to plan and implement an enterprise-scale rollout, drawing on knowledge Enterprise Mobile attained through large iPhone deployments for companies in a variety of industries.

I sat down with Philippe Winthrop of the Enterprise Mobility Foundation not long ago to talk about a range of mobility topics. We conversed about the temptation for enterprises to take an individual liable approach for the mobile devices their employees use to conduct business and the overarching issue of corporate responsibility. Then we touched on recently announced capabilities for iPhone 4.0, and Apple’s increased focus on addressing the enterprise’s security and management requirements. See the full interview here.

Whether you’re tasked with overseeing 500 or 5000 smart phones or rugged devices, the same principles for successful device management hold true. Talking with Enterprise Mobile’s customers, I’ve found that they are experiencing similar device management challenges, whether they are in manufacturing, retail, health care, media, or some other market.  

Device management encompasses the management, control and updating of mobile devices. The more thoroughly you plan your device management strategy, the more you’ll reap from the processes you put in place. Your users will experience less downtime and, by gaining control over software updates, you will allow your employees to bypass the time-consuming task of taking their devices to a phone store or stopping by IT for updates. “Over the air” updates are easy to perform to quickly enhance user performance and maintain device and data security. 

As the number of smart phones in the enterprise only continues to increase, device management is more important now than ever before. The folks at InformationWeek echo my sentiment – check out their survey results in the current issue’s cover story.

The key to successful device management is understanding how the phones are used and the best practices you can implement to keep your users up and running, regardless of the problems they encounter with their devices.  By installing the solution that best meets your organization’s needs, you can collect the data you require, tracking how your employees interact with their phones and at what cost.  This data can help you make educated choices about your mobility strategy so that you can make adjustments to better support users and control wireless costs.

Last year I spelled out some of the issues you need to consider as you assess your organization’s mobility strengths in an article on CIO.com. Check it out when you get the chance.

The iPad has indeed arrived. You can’t head to a news site or check out the latest on the tech blogs without seeing a mention of Apple’s newest device. You know what I’m talking about – with its debut recently, the iPad has seemingly taken on a life of its own. From reviews in publications like The Economist to an article on application development in the New York Times, the media and the public alike are abuzz with its possibilities.

Before too long, some of the early users, who are now just getting comfortable with the device, will find ways to use it to perform job-related tasks. After the iPad 3G comes out, users and application developers will already have begun turning iPad into a serious enterprise device.

I expect that enterprise users will embrace the iPad for many of the same reasons they took to the iPhone (attractive design, ease of use and range of applications). Its form factor makes it suitable for tasks for which a laptop would be unwieldy, but a phone interface would be limiting. The iPad will especially appeal to mobile workers who need to access information and complete relatively simple data entry on the go. Salespeople will likely be early adopters since the lightweight device will be easy to carry on road trips and will provide a flexible platform for presenting product demos, photos and other graphical information. The iPad should also be put to good use in the medical field, providing doctors and other health care staff access to patient records and other information on an easy-to-carry device.

My advice to IT is this: apply the lessons learned from the iPhone and plan for iPad deployments. Anticipate how your end users might employ the device. Then consider what types of controls you’ll want to put in place to manage it effectively. In other words, treat the iPad like a smartphone or a laptop. It promises productivity benefits but will undoubtedly challenge your staff. They are not going to have a lot of time to come up to speed before end users start connecting the iPad to your network.

We’ve been hearing from more and more companies that lack Apple expertise but need to deploy iPhones to considerable numbers of users. In recent engagements we’ve applied our mobility tools and best practices to get fully loaded iPhones into the hands of our customers’ corporate users. By adapting our iPhone mobility services to the iPad, we’ll be ready when the iPad comes into the enterprise, whether it’s supplied by IT or brought in by enthusiastic users.

If you are supporting a corporate enterprise every day may bring new devices from employees that you may be asked to support.  Even if you have a strict supported device list that you hold regular end-users to, are you really going to say no way to your boss or one of the CxOs?

Using a new iPad this weekend I have run into some minor quirks so far, but nothing major I believe. Sharing my experiences here so you may save some research time:

- Biggest confusion factor was that it appears it won’t charge on a regular USB connection, and needs the full 10W charge from a wall adaptor. Otherwise you may see the “Not Charging” text next to the battery icon in the top right corner.

- You need to download the latest iTunes 9.1 (or higher) version to setup and register the iPad for the first time. Still no way over the air.

- Some applications on the Apple iTunes AppStore are “universal” and can run on either on the iPhone/iPod Touch or iPad. Others may have separate versions with different names. If you sync Apps from your Apple account from previous devices, you may find yourself with several “duplicate” applications showing up and should delete the non-iPad versions.

- Older “legacy” iPhone/iPod Touch applications can be zoomed up to full screen by tapping the round “2x” icon in the bottom right when running.

- The iBooks app is free (as is the Amazon Kindle app for iPad), but the three iWork apps are USD $9.99 each at this time. Pages is a word processor, Numbers a spreadsheet app, and Keynote a presentation app. All native apps sold by Apple and only for the iPad at this time. Together they are probably one of the best competitors to most of the upcoming Windows 7 Phone Office Hub functionality.

- You can place up to 6 icons in the bottom line of the screen for easy access. This is compared to the usual 4 on the other platforms.

It will be interesting to see the future Android and Microsoft based tablets and how they will compete against the iPad..

Useful Links

Apple iPad Enterprise Support Forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=269 

For a good listing of iPad supported apps:
http://appshopper.com/ipad

The iPhone Config Utility has been updated to v2.2 last week to support the iPad:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL926
http://images.apple.com/ipad/business/pdf/iPad_Deployment_Scenarios.pdf

But I don’t see any updates to the “Enterprise Deployment Guide” yet:
http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/enterprise/

Marco..
http://marco.blogsite.org

As you may have heard, today Enterprise Mobile announced the availability of a Hosted Device Management solution for iPhone and other mobile platforms. It is powered by technology from MobileIron, a partner that we have been working with very closely for a while now. I am personally excited about this for several reasons:

• Hosted DM is faster to implement – no design reviews, no security committees for our customers to deal with.
• It can be scaled up and down very quickly – if you are hiring 1333 merchandisers for a holiday season, no problem – you only get charged for the 2 months they are employed.
• No ramp up for a company’s IT staff is required.
• Coupled with our other services, it enables a full mobile deployment instantly.

I could go on to say why this is sexy. I could call it cloud computing, SaaS, the ASP model, hosting, outsourcing or any of the other labels that trendy now. The descriptors aren’t as important as the capabilities that hosted device management provides. Of course, we all know that beyond the benefits I mentioned there are challenges with a hosted model that should be considered. User/authentication can be more complex as the identity of users either has to be replicated or re-created with the hosting provider, and some services may be limited in terms of integrating into an existing on-premise infrastructure.

However, I do believe that when you combine our services and capabilities you get more benefits than pitfalls with the hosted model. Of course, if you don’t share that view, you can take advantage of the installation and services on premise. That way you can enjoy looking at the silver appliance in your data center and Enterprise Mobile takes care of all the support, ongoing management, provisioning or even end user support for you. Give us a call…

A lot of people don’t know it, but there is a way to deploy Enterprise Line of Business (LOB) applications to employee iPhones without using the Apple appstore.  It definitely has its caveats.  But, it’s worth knowing about.

If your company has 500 or more employees, you can buy an iPhone “Enterprise” developer license.  It’s a bit more then the “Standard” individual and company licenses, but not much.  For more on developer licenses, go here.

Once you have the license, you can sign your LOB apps with your certificate and provision them to company devices.  “Enterprise” developer licensing allows what is called “Universal” application provisioning.  This is the same type of provisioning that is granted to applications deployed through the Apple Appstore and allows deployment of the application to any iPhone on the face of the Earth.

Wow, so with a developer license, you can deploy an app to any iPhone out there without going through the appstore….WRONG!  The “Enterprise” developer license EULA that you accepted dicatates that you are only allowed to deploy apps to iPhones operated by employees of your company.  Deployment to any other iPhones is illegal.  And, I’m absolutely sure that Apple is not going to stand by and let you break the law.

Well, you can deploy your LOB app to your company users and that’s the important thing, right?  At this point, you may be wondering how you go about deploying the application to the employee-operated iPhone.  There are currently two ways to do it.  Use the iPhone Configuration Utility (iPCU) or use Apple iTunes.  Both methods are described in the Apple iPhone Enterprise Deployment Guide.

The caveat here is that neither iPCU or iTunes app deployment can be performed directly between the iPhone and a server.  Both iPCU and iTunes are desktop applications that run on either a Mac or Windows machine.  But, they do support two different scenarios.  iPCU is best if you want to setup a bulk number of iPhones with your LOB before giving them to the user.  iTunes is better for deployment of the app or on-going updates when the iPhone is already in the user’s hands.

When deploying the LOB app, you have to get your Enterprise Developer License .mobileprovision file installed on the iPhone before you can install a .app file.  You can deploy the .mobileprovision file using desktop management that you may have deployed in your network to offload this task from the user.  When the iPhone is connected to the desktop running iTunes, the .mobileprovision file will be deployed.  Then the user must add the .app to their app library and select to install it on their iPhone.

I just came across an interesting marketing gimmick – www.bargaincell.com have extended some of their deals till January 15th 2010 !

However there is a catch – you have to place the orders on Thursdays and Fridays only in addition to using the THRFRIDAY coupon.

So in order to get the 15% off:

1) Go to www.bargaincell.com Thu or Fri ONLY

2) During checkout use THRFRIDAY coupon

3) Save 15% on your new Motorola Droid or iPhone or even Windows Mobile Accessories