Enforced standardization on any one mobile device within the enterprise is on the way out. With the consumerization of IT, employees are making smartphone choices based on a blend of personal and business needs - and demanding that IT support them. So IT can either fight the employee device invasion or proactively establish a portfolio of supported mobile platforms and services, an approach called "enabled compliance." This free handbook explains why "enabled compliance" - backed up by an automated Mobile User Management strategy - is what IT management and CIOs need to maximize mobile worker productivity while optimizing the balance of service quality, cost and risk to the organization.
Device Diversity: The Next Wave in Mobility How to Get Proactive Right Now Before the Wave Hits
A Manager's Handbook
October 2009
1 Device Diversity: A Manager's Handbook
Why You Need To Read This Handbook Now The consumerization of smartphones has made it virtually impossible for organizations to standardize on a single mobility platform. So forward-looking organizations are proactively shifting to a practice of 'enabled compliance' for managing mobile diversity. And they are applying the IT Service Management approach using proven Mobile User Management strategies based on the IT Infrastructure Library. In this Handbook, learn how you and your executive IT management can maximize mobile worker productivity while optimizing the balance of service quality, cost and risk to the organization.
Introduction The past 30 years of technology waves have been marked by dominant providers, who were often embraced by enterprise IT organizations seeking to 'enforce standardization' so that they could squeeze out risk, optimize quality of service and reduce costs. Each standardization cycle often lead to very broad market adoption, which in turn enabled easier access to skilled technology talent pools, more vendor choice and lower TCO thanks to commoditization. The challenge with mobility is that it is very unlikely that there will ever be standardization on a single mobility platform. With the consumerization of IT, employees are making smartphone choices based on a blend of personal and business needs - and demanding that IT support them. So enterprise IT can either fight the employee device invasion, or it can proactively shift from 'enforced standardization' to a new practice often called 'enabled compliance' in which IT establishes a portfolio of supported mobile platforms and services - for example BlackBerry and iPhone (via ActiveSync) - and defines for each mobile platform the level of support and services capabilities available, and at what cost. For example, depending on the smartphone an employee selects, an organization could choose to absorb all costs, deliver key business applications, and provide high quality service and support; or it may require the employee to pay extra for basic IT operational support, provide no application support, and may not even allow calls to an internal Help Desk. This Handbook explains why 'enabled compliance' - backed up by the ITIL best-practices-based automated Mobile User Management strategy - is what IT management and CIOs need to maximize mobile worker productivity while optimizing the balance of service quality, cost and risk to the organization.
2 Device Diversity: A Manager's Handbook
Part 1: The Mobility Battle Royale Mobility is about driving productivity higher for remote workers via voice data and applications. The first killer app for mobility was email, dominated by BlackBerry. More recently, tens of thousands of iPhone apps have flooded the market. With more vendors - including Google, Microsoft and Nokia- entering the mobile app fray, the battle for the Application Delivery Platform of the future is underway Each platform has distinctive unique capabilities, user experience and competitive strengths/weaknesses. However, none is ever likely to dominate as the standard.
We've seen other technology waves before start out similarly - most notably with PCs and the Internet. In many organizations, PCs invaded one or two departments while IT was focused on the central data center mainframe approach. But IT eventually recognized the need/threat, took over, and brought standardization to networking, client/server and desktop apps. Then the internet invaded, typically through marketing. Once more IT recognized the need/threat, took over, and brought standardization. In both cases, ITs typical argument to the business was, "Put us in control and we'll deliver higher quality of service at lower cost and risk." And they did. But unlike the standard company PC, mobility and choice of smartphone is much more personal. Busy executives and professionals use the smartphone to organize their lives, stay connected, and do their jobs - many using them literally every couple of minutes. Most are demanding (and are getting) the right to choose wh... [download for more]
