Time For IT Shops To Get Moving On Enterprise Mobility
 

We’ve come a long way since the first consumer mobile device hit the U.S. market in 1981. What started as a 150-person mobile test network in Baltimore has grown to a 5.3 billion-subscriber worldwide market. Mobile networks now covering 90% of the world’s population.
The transformative power of mobility can be felt all over the globe, from the streets to the boardroom. The combination of untethered broadband connectivity, global reach, availability of Web-based resources and the emergence of personal, powerful and affordable devices has shaped the mobile device into the information-sharing platform – a historic impact on par with the invention of the printing press and TV and radio.


Yet, as people around the world continue to drive the adoption of mobile devices, businesses still struggle to understand the full impact on their workforce and their bottom line. In fact, a June 2011 Unisys study conducted by IDC found that while mobile adoption is accelerating in the workplace, IT organizations are failing to prepare their organizations. For example, only 6% of IT decision-makers surveyed said that they had modernized their customer-facing applications to work with mobile devices - and 89% said they had no plans to do so over the next year.
What’s holding organizations back from exploiting the potential benefits of the mobility trend? Our research shows that IT executives are facing formidable challenges around how to effectively secure and manage the tidal wave of mobile devices and applications being used in the enterprise – and they are reacting defensively by attempting to continue age-old IT governance, management and purchasing models that don’t work any more.
This resistance to change is understandable. But are we protecting corporate information assets at the expense of missed business opportunities?
To answer that question, we must first take a step back and consider why mobile devices have grown so pervasive over the past 30 years. Several factors have contributed to the unique value premise and resultant success of mobile devices, including:

• The ultra-portable characteristics of mobile technology, combined with and enabled by the Internet, that allows instant, anywhere/anytime access to information.
• Strong personal association with users. Unlike personal computers, which in many cases are actually shared with other people, mobile devices carry a strong personal identity to their owners, manifested in the form of preferences, contacts, schedules and even location information.
• Tight integration with powerful computing and communication capabilities from voice to instant messaging.
• A broad array of add-on features and built-in sensors from GPS to cameras.
• Ground-breaking innovations in user experience in the form of touch screens and gesture-based interfaces.

The combination of these capabilities makes mobile platforms a potentially huge disruptive force for innovation in nearly every industry. As with any disruptive trend of this magnitude, a window of opportunity exists for organizations to position themselves for the era ahead and capitalize on mobile technology for competitive advantage.