Five Trends Influencing the CIO Smartphone Agenda
Which is more important, the data or the device? MobileIron's Ajay Mishra tackles this and other key smartphone questions for CIOs now.
Tue, February 02, 2010
CIO —
I've spent most of 2009 meeting with CIOs and their IT organizations to understand their concerns and challenges about managing and securing mobile phones. In my conversations with people across the country and across industries, it became clear that smartphones are now finally on the CIO agenda and, in fact, one of the most difficult topics:
• There are a variety of different platforms;
• Employees are bringing their own phones to work;
• Applications can compromise security; and
• The monthly costs are unpredictable.
What they told me again and again is that IT is losing control of smartphones and yet retaining all the accountability. This is what keeps them up at night.
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The good news is that companies are shifting their thinking. They've realized that what worked for laptops does not work for smartphones and that they need to develop very different management strategies. Here are the five trends CIOs across the country and across industries are considering as they develop an enterprise mobility plan.
1. The smartphone has become the platform-of-choice for the knowledge worker
It's no longer a question of whether laptops or smartphones are the platform of choice for employees. Technology has advanced hugely in the last 18 months and employees are embracing a pocket-sized device that delivers voice and wireless email with a PC-class browser. Smartphones are the device that an employee never leaves at home, the default 'go-to' device. This creates a swath of new, powerful end-points for which the CIO has to manage risk and leverage innovation.
2. The CIO is now a virtual wireless operator
When a CIO has 50,000 employees using smartphones, whether they like it or not, they have become a mini service provider. This challenge is further complicated because smartphones are not uniform: there are multiple operating systems and multiple actual operators to be managed. To be effective, CIOs need the same types of tools and technology as a cellular operator. They want technology that lets them work at a network level not a device level and they want to get in front of potential problems by tracking usage and costs in real-time. Finally, like any service provider, they want to minimize helpdesk calls and proactively monitor quality.
3. Data is more important than the device
When it comes to phones a device can be replaced but the data is priceless. As a result CIOs are recognizing a need to shift their thinking from device management to data management. Think of it as the "MP3 school" of smartphone management. Employees use their phones like an MP3 player; they use them to access data that is stored somewhere independent of the device. Smartphones have become a broad-ranging gateway for data access, which underscores the need to secure them.
