If there's ever a word to use to describe my work ethic, people would typically say either dedicated or "just nuts." The latter was used by a colleague of mine today when I got up at 4am (after going to bed at 2) to talk to a mobility vendor. While I certainly can't name who the vendor was, I wanted to share a little part of the conversation. One of our clients asked us to describe the ecosystem of a "typical" mobile deployment. What a great question. Is there such a thing?
I told the client that there is no such thing. Hence the challenge, hence the opportunity. It's the wild, wild west out there in the land of enterprise mobility. I'll call it "still a relatively nascent market" when being more diplomatic.
The point is that while there are increasing number of standards and methodologies for deploying applications and solutions, it's still not as "refined" as other IT deployments, whether desktop, laptop, server or even a data center. Even application deployment over existing infrastructure is not a one size fits all concept. What about the kinds of applications being deployed? Are they point solutions, horizontal or vertical? Are they off the shelf, completely custom or tweaked (how often is that even possible)? Oh ya, and where/how were those applications procured.
Size matters....or does it? Large enterprises are more likely to go to a systems integrator for help with a mobile application deployment (if only due to the costs), but will the SI be the primary contractor? What's the "standard" channel for the purchase of these solutions. Problem is right now that there is no one answer...however, they do all start off with "Well, it depends." Reminds me of what I was taught in college - something along the lines that any economist worth his salt will answer any question by starting off with "Well, it depends..."
I digress. Maybe as we see increasing consolidation in mobile platforms (remember what Jack Gold said!), we'll see more standardized approaches to application procurement and deployment. I certainly hope so, it will show that the industry has started maturing.
