Enterprise Mobility

The increase in usage of mobile devices in organizatinos raises more policy related issues than technology related ones

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Mobility is de rigueur (required by the current fashion or custom; socially obligatory) for any self respecting tech setup these days. So, this piece is not  about the obvious choices and trends in mobile data access for your workforce.  This piece will focus on the associated issues that both the user and the tech team is likely to face. Along the way, we will also recommend some solutions of the tech kind and some of the not-so-tech kind.

Let us start with the first of our two predictions. The usage of affordable mobile devices that can connect to the network, as well as to the Internet over multiple wireless protocols raises a number of issues, of security, of access and of connectivity.

The IT department is more likely to grapple with these issues of policy rather than with those of technology  implementation. For example, should users be allowed to use their personal laptops at the workplace, instead of office machines? If yes, does the office get the same amount of control over the software running on those machines, as they have on the other machines?

If those machines (with valuable enterprise data) crash, is the organization responsible to recover it? Who will pay for it?

What about an outsider who walks in with a Blue tooth enabled device (most cell phones and almost all PDAs today are bluetooth enabled) that scans and connects to open Bluetooth connections in notebooks across the office?

An average IT department that does some monitoring and enforcing of controls on the infrastructure being used (but not too strictly) would be the one that is going to be the most heavily taxed by the addition of a plethora of mobile devices to the network.

The answer like with any other tech infrastructure problem lies in getting your user policies in place first, and then working out the tech details. Many companies have already started locking down their employees' laptops ports, and installing other security software.

Another challenge that IT departments will face is in reformatting their application GUIs and Web pages (intranet applications included) to fit mobile

devices, particularly cellphones and PDAs. With an ever increasing number of platforms (operating system/Software or browser supported / hardware) and screen sizes around, IT departments will be forced to limit the platforms they support to a few and, thus, may be forced to drive some level of standardization of mobile platforms for across the organization, as they strive to deliver richer interfaces to mobile devices.

Will users resent this? Of course they will, particularly when the cell phone and PDA are items of personal purchase. Some organizations, at least, will get around the problem by making the cell phone and PDA also items of office issue, much like the notebook. Others may go half way with subsidized purchases. That brings us to prediction number two, and its impact on the IT infrastructure and the department. With mobile devices like the cellphone becoming data and network enabled, the demand that the workplace places on the employee's personal time will be on the increase.

A natural corollary of this is that the IT infrastructure has to be always available, and traditional models like backup and maintenance of the infrastructure during off peak hours will have to undergo some modifications in the long run.

In the short term, the IT department will have to make some provisions for round the clock technology support availability (if they do not already have it in place). Mobility is here not only to stay but to fluorish over the years.  This is just the beginning, so it's better to start planning out your strategy to manage it in the future.

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