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Good point! Most mobile apps that have been around for a while and gone through various hardware and software upgrades are blue collared apps… which were always designed for a specific Symbol model, with a specific version of windows mobile – even then, despite mono-hardware and mono-OS, upgrades were tough!
I’m guessing that if HTML5 apps eventually come out they may solve the upgrading issue, leaving the complexity to the browsers! What do you think?
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I agree there is a seperate distiction between the two platforms but i think until enterprise mobility matures there will e a blury line between mdm and mam ( mobile application managemeent).
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@meleegy – Amr, so when do you think that maturation will happen?
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It is not clear whether the time has yet come to worry about Mobility Lifecycle Management – especially as it pertains to enterprise. Enterprise mobility is just starting a life. It is yet too early to worry about mobility lifecycle.
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I would argue we are crossing the chasm:
http://theemf.org/2011/09/21/crossing-the-chasm-of-enterprise-mobility/
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It’s clear that within the enterprise hardware life cycle remains a large component of TCO calculation. The ability to deploy a device with a knowledge that it will remain viable is extremely important to a CTO and the IT department that needs to provision and support hardware throughout its life.
Personal devices brought in to the enterprise tend to be more difficult to support and secure and often are out of date or end-of-life within 12 months, causing IT more issues in terms of upgrades, ports to new devices, etc.
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They may be end of lifed, but users are on 2yr contracts…does that mean that in one respect, there’s a 12 month lag?
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Phillipe, couldn’t agree more with the idea that MAM has it’s own lifecycle, and more importantly, must be dealt with as such. It’s not an extension of MDM, but a newer, more focused area in enterprise mobility management.
These two lifecycles are going to be very different, and as such should be treated very differently….and hence managed differently.
Another way to think about the difference is to identify the stakeholders that care about the lifecycle in question? For MDM, it’s security and/or IT Operations. However for MAM, it’s those organizations plus your AppDev team, maybe your marketing team if it’s a B2C App. The teams will have a different focus for managing the App, but they all care about the success of the App within the organization.
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This is an interesting topic. I tend to agree that there will continue to be a blurring of the line between these two lifecycle management categories. One of my colleagues here at Symantec, John Engels, was actually a panelist on a recent industry roundtable that focused on mobile lifecycle management. Though the panel didn’t address the issue of mobile device lifecycle management vs. mobile app lifecycle management specifically, it’s still very relevant to this discussion. If anyone is interested, a podcast of the roundtable is available here: http://bit.ly/nRdpgJ (media file).
Spencer Parkinson
Symantec 0 0 -
Yes and No.
Totally agree that devices and apps each fly on their own path as their own lifecycles. BUT… There is a 3rd lifecycle missing which is the holistic mobile services lifecyle (AKA mobile service management or MSM).
From an ITSM perspective (where I am at Fusion11 this week run by the iTSMf & HDI while you are at GigaOM), the enterprise is evolving now to recognize mobile as a new set of core IT servicse. In fact, mobile has a broad based set of services that span multiple roles in the enterprise, needs to integrate with existing infrastructure and processes for leverage, and has a broader lifecycle. The ITSM or MSM lifecycle spans release & deployment management, security & policy management, configuration & change management, service desk management, incident management, problem management, asset management and ultimately service level management — which is a whole lot more than just MDM and MAM.
So 3 lifecycles — device, application and service.
PS we’ve not only crossed the chasm, we’re inside the tornado… welcome to the ride!
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Managing Multiple Mobile Lifecycles
Just like we have finally started hearing more and more people talk over the last few months about the importance of mobile application management, I’m starting to hear more and more people talk about mobile lifecycle management. Candidly, I’m hoping this doesn’t turn into another MDM or Mobile Security buzzword that is over used and misunderstood.
Let me just cut to the chase. Which lifecycle of mobility are we trying to manage here? The lifecycle of the device or of the applications that will be used on those devices? These two lifecycles are going to be very different, and as such should be treated very differently….and hence managed differently.
Lifecycle management is all about time. How long does it take for something to be created, used by a broad (enterprise) population and then retired/replaced/updated. The typical lifecycle of a mobile device will be 12-24 months…assuming of course it is neither lost or stolen (or used in a shared/ruggedized environment where it could be around much longer). But what about your mobile applications? Do you really think the same version of an app is going to be around for more than 12 months? That’s very unlikely, given at the very least that mobile operating systems are now getting major upgrades once a year….and not surprisingly, the OS owners are not doing their updates all at the same time in such a way that would make the IT department’s lives easier.
The point being is that as mobility is accelerating the rate at which organizations are going about their business, this will also fuel the speed at which your organization will be developing, deploying and updating mobile applications….and this will definitely be asynchronous to the rate at which your employer (or employees) will be bringing mobile devices into the workplace. Just like mobile device management is different from mobile application management, the lifecycles of these different components must be treated differently. However, they are not in their own silos….just like how we need to consider the totality of what enterprise mobility management means for the workplace.
Agree? Disagree? Discuss.