I recently wrote about 4 simple, yet strong predictions, that for many are already underway, but for others perhaps only starting and needs to be highlighted.

“Several trends – and the way companies react to them – will create challenges for IT, as organizations attempt to exercise some control over devices that are not necessarily designed to be secure and manageable. With careful planning and an understanding of best practices and mobile device management (MDM) options, IT can go a long way toward meeting those challenges.”

2012 Mobile Prediction #1: The era of BYOD begins
2012 Mobile Prediction #2: The media tablet gains prominence
2012 Mobile Prediction #3: The array of mobile device applications grows more diverse
2012 Mobile Prediction #4: Mobile devices and MDM evolve

Read the whole article here and my thoughts for each one of these: http://esj.com/Articles/2012/01/16/Mobile-Device-Management-Challenges-Opportunities.aspx

What are your opinions about what is occurring in enterprise mobility today and what should companies do to meet the challenges of the coming year?

Marco..

The iPad certainly has been a game changer for the enterprise. At Enterprise Mobile, we’ve seen significant interest among our customers, who are finding compelling reasons to adopt the tablet for their business. They come to us for help deploying the iPad to their employees and for user support and device management services.

Now, we expect business users to explore even more ways to use the tablet, as the much-anticipated iPad 2 arrives on the market. It’s thinner, lighter and faster than the original, and sports front- and rear-facing cameras, which will appeal to users across industries.

Enterprise Mobile has been busy helping companies bring the Apple tablet into their environments in a way that enriches the user experience without jeopardizing corporate computing policies.  We’re working with companies that don’t have the internal expertise to achieve that balance alone – and lack the time needed to understand the full range of requirements for an iPad project.

As a result, companies are turning to our mobility architects, who have spent considerable time gaining experience with the iOS platform and the different mobile device management (MDM) solutions that allow enterprises to manage iOS devices (the iPad,  iPhone and iPod touch) with confidence.

For organizations in diverse industries, including airlines, media, pharmaceuticals, and the food and beverage market, we deploy iPads to employees. We also handle end user support, as well as ongoing device management for the iPad (installing and administering the MDM solution that’s right for a company’s particular business and technical needs). Since most companies have little experience with the tablet, they rely on our expertise to address everything that’s needed for a speedy iPad deployment and successful ongoing initiative.  

Read our iPad case study to learn more about how we’re helping companies take advantage of the elegance and versatility of the iPad.  It describes how Enterprise Mobile deployed more than 1300 iPads to an airline’s pilots and how we provide end user support and replacement services to ensure that the pilots can productively use the iPad in place of the huge technical manuals they would otherwise lug into the cockpit.

This week Google announced Android 3.0, code-named Honeycomb, the much-anticipated version of the OS that delivers a range of capabilities designed to support tablets. With this new release, Google aims to help Android-based tablets successfully compete with the iPad, the tablet that has captured the imagination of users worldwide.

The pace of change in the mobility space is truly remarkable, like nothing we’ve seen before. By my calculations, we can expect to see 7 to 10 new versions of the major platforms each year. That’s likely 2 or 3 each from Google and Apple and a couple for Windows Phone. And as for mobile devices – nearly every month new ones appear on the market.

Enhancements to mobile device platforms give consumers a constantly growing range of choices when they compare smartphones and tablets. Whether they are looking for a device for personal or business use – or both – they definitely have a broad selection from which to choose.

But, as the pace of change provides an increasingly rich and more satisfying experience for users, it creates serious challenges for IT.  Keeping up with constantly changing platforms, devices and device management solutions (not to mention fickle mobile users and their unpredictable preferences) can be overwhelming. The diversity among mobile platforms and devices means IT must struggle to track mobile management and security capabilities and keep up with the solutions and best practices for implementing them.

Enterprise Mobile, providing corporate mobility services across industries, provides a way for organizations to tap mobility expertise and avoid the effort and expense of acquiring that expertise internally. We’ve taken on the challenge of tracking updates to the major mobile platforms, devices, and device management solutions. Armed with that knowledge, we’re helping our customers deploy devices like the iPad to employees and providing support and management services to help the mobile workforce perform more effectively.

The iPad’s popularity is undeniable.  If you don’t already have your hands on one, it’s likely that the tablet is on your Christmas wish list. 

Beyond personal use, the iPad is also proving to be a compelling device in a wide variety of business verticals, including healthcare and finance, and sales and education. Industry analysts are advising their enterprises to start planning now for how they will use and support the tablet as enthusiasm for the device in the workplace continues to grow.  

At Enterprise Mobile we are seeing a tremendous amount of interest in the iPad among our enterprise customers and are happy to be able to respond to their needs.  Our new iPad Mobility Services  address all of the requirements of a successful iPad rollout.  They include assessment, procurement, provisioning and configuration with customer-specified applications, ongoing user support and device depot and management.

Here are just some scenarios in which customers are relying on our services:

• A global pharmaceutical company is equipping some of its sales force with iPads for sharing information about medication and other data to hospital-based providers
• A leading multimedia company is providing executives and other personnel with iPads for accessing corporate information
• A large financial firm is distributing iPads and about 30 Apple App Store applications to employees to allow them to access and process corporate information.

 You can read more about these services on our website.

The arrival of Windows Phone 7 devices in the U.S. means consumers have even more choices to consider when they compare smart phones – whether they want them for business use or personal use or both. After a disappointing experience with the unsuccessful Kin family of phones, it’s exciting to see that Microsoft has built a compelling next-generation mobility platform. As a result, the first wave of Windows Phone devices offers consumers a new type of smartphone experience.

It also means that enterprise IT will need to prepare to manage and support a new mobile platform because several aspects of WP7 are critical to enterprise mobility. For instance, the platform provides device management capability that allows smart phones to comply with corporate policies. Version 1 is not perfect (there’s no encryption, for example), but it does provide for a basic ActiveSync compliant device. By allowing users to transition easily between their work and personal lives, Windows Phone 7 will enable employees to carry one device around the clock. In addition, by making it easy to develop cloud-based enterprise-specific apps for this platform, Microsoft has taken steps to appeal to consumers who have grown accustomed to having a wide array of smartphone apps to choose from. Based on these and other characteristics, I believe Windows Phone 7 will make it onto many approved lists very quickly.

The advancements that Windows Phone 7 brings to the smartphone market will further spur innovation in a market that shows no signs of standing still and make the ever-evolving and increasingly diverse mobility market even more interesting. Really.

We all know the importance of having access to information right at our fingertips. It’s become second nature to grab your phone to access email or search for that song you can’t think of to save your life. The ability to get answers quickly and accurately makes our personal lives easier. In the business world, it can make a huge difference – helping companies gain and maintain competitive advantage.

One industry that is reaping mobility’s benefits is retail. Instead of printing and lugging around paperwork, retail and merchandising employees can use mobile devices to collect valuable data and easily feed it to centralized databases. Managers can then access the most up-to-date information to monitor store performance and streamline the reporting process. Just as consumers use their phones to get things done, mobile technologies allow retailers to boost productivity and get more out of their workforce.

Why then aren’t all retailers making a mad dash for mobility? Learn more about the obstacles to adoption retail faces and how those obstacles can be overcome in this article in Chain Store Age magazine by Mike Anderson, Enterprise Mobile VP, Operations.

Increasingly, companies are deciding that an Individual Liable approach to mobile devices makes sense and that appears to be a trend that’s here to stay. Compelling, exciting choices in platforms and devices drive companies to allow the use of employee-owned mobile devices on the job.  Today, more and more people are using the same device for business and personal activities.

As employees gain greater freedom in their choice of mobile devices for business use, they experience a range of benefits, while IT faces some real challenges. The situation is a combination of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

The Good is that the broad range of smart phones and the innovation they provide are truly empowering users. Platforms are increasingly enterprise-aware, providing ways to meet corporate security and manageability standards. Yet these same choices lead to a lack of standardization, which is the Bad. And it all leads to the Ugly – what happens when choice gets ahead of the company’s ability to handle it.  What results is a mess.

To learn more about how to deal with the Ugly and embrace the diversity among mobile platforms and devices, check out this article I recently wrote for Mobile Enterprise magazine.

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.

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.

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