Hardware as a Service and Enterprise Mobility

What a dreadfully dreary day today here in Boston.  It’s 48 F, cold and rainy.  Spring doesn’t seem to exist anymore here in Boston.  The flip side is that at least there is no snow.  For those of you who know Boston, the snow can make going anywhere a challenge.  In any case, the lack of snow afforded me the opportunity to have lunch with a fellow member of the enterprise mobility forum.  Thai food is always a nice back drop to a good, intelligent conversation.  Shockingly, we spent much of the lunch talking about (enterprise) mobility.  One thing that we touched in passing was the recent Google announcement regarding their new Chrome OS based netbooks.  You know…the ones they plan on selling as a monthly service.

Engadget got all excited (as they do with all Apple and Google announcements) and proclaimed it

Hardware as a Service, folks!

….which, of course, got me thinking about the enterprise mobility perspective.

First off, this business model is nothing new or revolutionary.  What Engadget is so naively calling Hardware as a Service, has been called in prior times (I feel like it may have originated in the mesozoic era) LEASING.

Side note….don’t you love how we continuously try to rebrand things that have been around for ages…you know, like The Cloud? 

Leasing of IT infrastructure - as I just mentioned – is nothing new.  In fact, the same can be said from an enterprise mobility perspective.  It’s not a new concept.  In fact, I know of a couple of massive deals where this has been occurring for some time.  The question of course is, what does it take for this concept….you know, LEASING….or Hardware as a Service…..or even Mobility as a Service….to gain critical mass?

Remember back in the 1970s when you would actually rent your phone from your national carrier?  I fondly recall the big red rotary phone my parents had in our kitchen.  Something didn’t work with it….a technician would come replace it.  They even switched it as some point to a touch tone beige colored device.  At some point though, phones got so cheap that people started buying them on their own because they couldn’t justify the cost of the device when you could buy one for less that lasted longer.

Things are slightly different today.  The big red phone I had in my parents’ house was not evolving at a frenetic pace.  Today, there are new mobile devices coming out what feels like every week.  Certainly, we see some sort of technological leapfrog occurring every three months or so….so my sense is there could perhaps be a unique proposition coming from the carriers.

What if they started offering an unlimited bundle where you paid no upfront costs for the device….but instead paid say, $10/month on a two year plan, or $20/month on a 12 month plan….because so many of us want to get the latest gadget as soon as it’s available.  The cool part is that the devices could probably be re-leased (at say, $5-10 month) for people who don’t want or need the latest device (assuming it’s in good shape).  Throw in a tablet for another $20/$30 per month and you’re a mobility monster! Now imagine either the carrier or one of its partners managing all the devices for your firm.

This is mobile outsourcing people!  You own none of the physical assets, but get to use them for the specified duration of the contract.  Take that one step further and think about it at scale….in combination with a mobile unified communications solution.  You don’t need that desk phone anymore.  Does this have legs?