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Convergence is driving mobile device change

By: Drivers.com staff

Date: Wednesday, 03. September 2008

Employees' desire to be plugged in with the latest mobile communications and computing devices is causing headaches for security-conscious corporate IT managers.

The desire to be 'converged' with in-the-hand communications devices that include phone, navigation, music, video, and internet is driving many employees to jump the gun and purchase the devices themselves if their bosses don't spring for them, and this is playing havoc with IT managers' security plans.

IDC, a major global provider of market intelligence and advisory services for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets, has prepared a report on the phenomenon.

IDC analyst Sean Ryan found that more than 40% of U.S. employees have purchased converged devices for both personal and business use. The status device right now is the Apple iPhone.

However, for IT managers, the administration issues related to all this connectivity can be nightmarish. One corporate response is to take the initiative by being more forward in supplying converged devices which are under the IT manager's control. That would mean being able to remotely control and configure it, implement encryption and password policies, and erase information if a device is stolen or lost.

Another issue is dealing with variety. The variation in phones and browsers is making application development difficult. Added to this is the short development lifespan of devices. "By the time you�ve got a new application, you're into a new generation of devices," said one consultant on mobile technologies.

Google is working on a solution to this dilemma by heavily promoting its Android Project. Android aims to deliver a complete set of software solutions for the core functionalities of mobiles devices based on open-source development. Google is offering more than $10m in awards to developers who come up with applications that are recognized as "innovative and compelling" by the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), which is the organization in charge of overseeing the Android platform.

Meanwhile, many major organizations are resolving their dilemma by standardizing on a single platform such as Research in Motion's Blackberry. "The BlackBerry is still far and away the leader in the enterprise," according to IDC analyst Sean Ryan.

To make the point he cites the example of investment banking giant Merrill Lynch. The company currently manages 22,000 corporate BlackBerry devices from 60 BlackBerry Enterprise servers and it's adding 500 per month.

Kristofor Swanson, a vice president in the mobile strategy department at Merrill Lynch, foresees a day when 100% of Merill Lynch's employees will be BlackBerry users.

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All Comments (2)

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Ken,

Hey, the site through the apaotcpiiln works doesn't interpret some Unicode letters correctly. More precisely, I'm Czech and some letters from Czech alphabet are not interpreted correctly. Moreover, on my phone (Nokia 5800) the widget is really hard to operate since letters are really small (and it's really hard to tell if the widget is actually doing something or if you just mis-clicked) and the footer you have there occupies roughly a half of display. Hope this feedback helps to make it better, cheers

juan,

no funk video


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