Welcome to the latest edition of Inside Looking Out. This past week (on my vacation, no less!), I got to speak with Josh Lipton. Josh is a VP of Consulting and the CTO at Advantix Solutions Group, a Texas based wireless mobility management solutions provider.
One of the things that impresses me with Advantix is how they combine so many various parts of EMM as part of an end to end solution to their clientele.
Enterprise Mobility Matters: Hi Josh. Welcome to Inside Looking Out. Enterprise Mobility has changed a lot in the last few years. What would you say is the greatest recent advancement?
Josh Lipton: Hi Philippe. Glad to be hear....especially on your vacation! It occurs to me that, in an industry where innovation is the norm, the most significant advances made over the last few years are more social than technical. The greatest social advancement was a shift in perception of wireless devices as a luxury to a necessity – both personal and professional. While the “smart” or “super” phones garner media attention, the less exciting but potentially more significant achievement is the total penetration of wireless devices (smart or otherwise) in excess of 85% here in the US. That’s an amazing achievement in a relatively short period of time and it has enormous implications at the enterprise level as they assess the best ways to take advantage of this highly distributed technology.
EMM: Are companies looking at mobility differently today as compared to a few years ago?
JL: Absolutely. No longer seen as a perk, companies now starting to think strategically about their mobility plans and how they can leverage these platforms to improve their productivity and capabilities. Instead of deploying devices to a “select few”, we are seeing large scale plans to mobilize entire workforces within companies of all shapes and sizes. With large scale deployments come significant challenges as well but the potential gains are enormous.
EMM: How do you see the economy impacting mobility in the enterprise? When are we going to see an upturn in the (our) market?
JL: While companies see the potential benefits of deploying devices across the enterprise, they realize that issues related to cost control, support and visibility through reporting must be addresses as well. In the current economic climate, a solution that can control cost while improving capabilities is a big win. Fortunately, enterprises now have access to independent managed mobility firms that can help them achieve continuing savings and administrative support without being tied to a specific provider or platform solution. By removing the headache associated with managing wireless devices, CIOs can focus on taking full advantage of the capabilities these devices promise.
EMM: What do you think is the greatest current opportunity for enterprise mobility?
JL: It is time for the enterprise to move beyond email and calendaring. In this area, the marketing is much farther ahead of the reality inside the enterprise. Deploying REAL applications for project management, customer service, sales etc. can create huge returns on the right projects. Instead of seeing mobility as a cost of doing business – it should be seen as an area of significant opportunity.
EMM: What do you think is the greatest risk for organizations right now?
JL: Platform wars. I see a sense of paralysis as organizations try to determine whether BlackBerry, iPhone, Symbian, Palm, Android, Windows Mobile or any host of other platforms are going to “win”. What these organizations should realize is that questions like that are not likely to be settled for quite some time. In the interim, there are outstanding solutions from middleware (Navara) to cross-platform frameworks like Rhodes. The time to start building and deploying true mobile applications within their enterprise is now while the competitive advantage is greatest.
EMM: What steps should executives take to ensure the success of their mobility implementations?
JL: Build a strong foundation. You wouldn’t think about deploying laptops or desktops to your workforce without a plan to support and manage them would you? In the same way you need to have a strategy and resources I place when it comes to your wireless devices. In many ways the prevalence of wireless devices and speed with which it happened has taken companies by surprise. Get your house in order first (it’s easier than you think) by getting your foundation in place. Some keys we’ve learned here at Advantix and assist our clients with are:
- Centralized management
- Strong carrier agreements
- Policy
- Visibility into usage through reporting
- Support processes well defined
- Consistent review and cost control
Well there you have it. Thanks Josh for taking the time to chat with me about your views on Enterprise Mobility. Do you know anyone who should be a guest here on Inside Looking Out? Drop me a line.
