|
By Doug Bartholomew
Blackberrys, iPhones, and a flock of other manufacturers' personal digital assistants are being used by tens of millions of corporate "road warriors." Business people use them at home, at work, while traveling, at trade shows, and even on vacation. In response, many large enterprises either are in the process of developing, or have already put in place, corporate policies and standards for use of these mobile devices.
But for midsize businesses that don't have a large information technology staff to cope with the wireless-device invasion, the management challenge they pose isn't so easily answered.
Are there certain steps a fast-growing $100 million-plus company can take to ensure that these new devices don't ride roughshod over its IT landscape?
CIOZone asked two CIOs at midsize firms and one analyst to weigh in on some key issues surrounding the management of mobile technologies. Responding were Jay Wessel, CIO at the Boston Celtics; Gene Waller, CFO and CIO at Bountyland Enterprises, a manager of convenience stores and service stations; and Jonathan Yarmis, vice president of disruptive technologies at AMR Research, the IT research firm.
CIOZone: How pervasive is mobile technology and how are midmarket companies using it?
Celtic's Wessel: Most midsize enterprises have a Blackberry enterprise server, or a number of them, and you learn to deal with it. Almost every single one of our 75 employees has a Blackberry.
AMR Research's Yarmis: Organizations need to take more active steps to deploy ways to use these devices for the enterprise. The on-demand solutions, where the design philosophy is to enable people to use any device to connect into the cloud, make it somewhat easier to connect with business applications using these devices.
CIOZone: Are these devices used primarily for e-mail and voice communication, or are users connecting with business applications inside the firewall?
AMR Research's Yarmis: The scenario for downloading applications to the Blackberry or Windows-based mobile devices is difficult. The application landscape on mobile devices is really poor, and most Blackberrys and iPhones are used for e-mail only. Of course, the SAPs and Oracles are recognizing this as an opportunity, but trying to do these applications on a browser that is not optimized for a small screen is painful.
Bountyland's Waller: We have the Verizon AirCard on three of our laptop computers that we use to enable us to have wireless Internet access anywhere we go. I keep one off site for my disaster recovery. That way, if our building collapsed, I could be up and running right away.
CIOZone: How do midmarket companies deal with the security issues and do the benefits outweigh the risks?
Celtic's Wessel: There are security issues, such as lost cell phones falling into the wrong hands. But all communication in and out of the Blackberry server is secure and encrypted.
It took a lot of time to get the Blackberry server up and running at first-it took me a solid week. The first time I did it myself. But once you've been through it, it's not a big thing.
AMR Research's Yarmis: Yes, there are security risks, but the value must outweigh the risks, because presumably users are using these devices for legitimate business purposes, such as access to their enterprise e-mail system. If there is greater benefit to this usage, then perhaps I am willing to assume greater risk.
CIOZone: Does IT really hate the iPhone, as a recent article in a leading financial publication suggested?
AMR Research's Yarmis: People in the organization are using iPhones to get into the company network, or they're using the VPN to get in. But organizations are powerless to stop it. IT departments are powerless. You don't need any fingers to count the number of user devices that IT has ever been able to stop.
Celtic's Wessel: I am participating in the Apple Enterprise Data Program. We have two users trying out using Apple's active synchronization to Microsoft Exchange, so that employees can get their Exchange information via the iPhone. This new program is what Apple calls a "seed," because the iPhone in production currently does not synch with Exchange.
Bountyland's Waller: We are not real sophisticated with the use of the iPhone or Blackberry. All our drivers and managers have cell phones. We've found that the more sophisticated equipment you get, the more expensive it is to replace it. Our management staff recently went fishing in Key West, and one of our company cell phones is in the Gulf now.
CIOZone: What's next? Is there anything CIOs at midsize companies can do to get ahead of the wireless device curve?
Yarmis: Down the road, I think these devices will be used to connect with business applications. And I think on-demand solutions such as software-as-a-service will help us to further exploit mobile devices.
Wessel: It's a fine line the CIO has to walk, on the one hand meeting the IT needs of the organization, and, on the other hand, keeping pace with the needs of the users. I think these new developments with Apple's iPhone will bring it into the corporate world.
Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register. |
