There was a very interesting post that came out on Information Week's mobile blog yesterday on AT&T's "desire" to consolidate its smartphone platforms down to one choice. In one respect, this makes perfect sense. While I don't have any hard numbers on this, there's no question that it must cost AT&T and all carriers for that matter a significant amount of money to support the myriad mobile device platforms that are available in the market. Even from a smartphone perspective, you have BlackBerry, Windows Mobile (2), Symbian, LiMo, iPhone and now even Android. That's six/seven platforms right there...not counting all the non smartphone platforms out there. But is this desire to consolidate good for enterprise mobility?
So if it's a hassle for an IT department to manage multiple platforms, doesn't it stand to reason that a carrier such as AT&T should want to do the same thing? Of course it does. There's only one problem. Given AT&T's role and responsibility within the marketplace, it can't do that. Yes, it needs to manage its bottom line, but by the same token, it and other carriers need to ultimately do what is best for their customers. Unfortunately for the carriers, one size does not fit all....and most likely never will.
So is there a middle ground? Can a carrier try to reduce the number of platforms it supports yet still provide flexibility for its customers? Well, there was a start towards that when Vodafone announced its three platform strategy that included Symbian, Microsoft and Linux. Frankly, I'm not sure where this plan stands (they still sell BlackBerry's by the way), but at a minimum, it is a laudible initiative.
The problem though is that even if the carriers were to consolidate on a couple of platforms for enterprise users and a couple (separate) operating systems for consumer mobility, that would still not prevent the continuing consumerization of enterprise mobility. Just look at the iPhone's continued adoption within the enterprise....something that I still don't get (but I digress). Regardless, the point is that consumers work in the enterprise and the enterprise is filled with consumers (imagine that!). The carriers as such are stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of how they can go about controlling their support costs. Also, if you think about free will and the power of choice, do you want your favorite carrier to decide what you can and can't use? No. Are you going to jump ship to another carrier because they have elected to no longer support the platform you have invested in? Maybe, but doubtfull.
So here's an interesting thought that I will use as my parting thought. What if the carriers decided to only support one or two platforms in house to better manage their costs and then either outsourced other platforms to select partners or offered end user organizations the options for "value-added" contracts for extended support services. Maybe a new market for device management in the works? Maybe a way for current MDM players to get into mobility outsourcing? Hmm....
