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Feb152012
4 Comments

Some More Thoughts Regarding What COPE Means For Enterprise Mobility

Philippe Winthrop

Where has the day gone?  It’s been one of those non stop days since dawn.  Frankly, that’s the way I like it.  The workaholic in me can’t deal with “slow” days.  I’ve spent part of the last 48 hours fielding some great offline questions regarding my last missive around what COPE can mean for the enterprise struggling with BYOD and the Consumerization of IT/enterprise mobility.  I figured it might make sense to expand upon the last missive to add more color to my vision.

Let me start off by saying that this is not a debate of COPE vs. BYOD.  It’s more of a “to-may-to” “to-mah-to” thing.

The bigger picture issue is the (what seams to be) unavoidable trend of Consumerization.  This has been one of the biggest concerns for IT departments in the last couple of years, and as we all know, much of the discussion around enterprise mobility has centered around BYOD – the lightning rod of the Consumerization trend.

The problem that organizations are trying to figure out with BYOD is very simple.  How do I secure my company’s private data on a device that I do not own.  Countless blog posts (many here), webinars, speaking engagements, and panels have all come up with one common thread.  You have to create a mobility policy that makes the most sense for your organization.  That’s a lot easier said then done (I love playing Monday Night Quarterback)

Another common comment that comes out of these discussions is that your organization will not necessarily want all its employees to bring their own devices into the workplace.  Some will argue that there are pockets of employees in the workforce that should always have a corporate liable device.  I couldn’t agree more.

And THAT is where COPE comes in.

COPE, in many (if not all) respects is the mirror image of BYOD.  Notice how I didn’t say polar opposite.  Like I said before, BYOD is all about having/managing a (small) portion of your personal device that is set aside for work “stuff.”  COPE is all about setting aside a (small) portion of the device so that we as individuals can do what we want.  The similarity between the two is that the individual (the employee) got to pick which device(s) suit them best.  So why can’t BYOD even co-exist with COPE?

COPE is hence – in my opinion – the logical evolution of Corporate Liable devices in the context that, while BYOD may not be unavoidable (you can have a policy that bans BYOD), the Consumerization of IT and enterprise mobility most certainly is an unstoppable force.

One person on Twitter said:

The issue is the focus is too much on BYOD and not enough on enabling the user which is what #CoIT is all about.

Talk about summing it all up in 140 characters or less.  So the question becomes, dear CIO/IT decision maker, are you going to fight this kicking and screaming (and probably lose) or are you going to be forward thinking and embrace the opportunities that come from being a hero within your organization?

Feb132012
13 Comments

Could There Be a Better Way to COPE With BYOD In The Enterprise?

Philippe Winthrop

“You can have any color you want…as long as it’s black.”  That’s a quote that is attributed to Henry Ford.  It makes me think about the “old days” of enterprise mobility…you know, the ones before we had the consumerization of IT and the tsunami better known as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).  You could have any smartphone you wanted, as long as it was a BlackBerry.  That’s because the IT department could control the devices with an iron fist.  Well, we have certainly had a “Mobile Spring” over the last couple of years where employees (most notably senior level executives) pushed back and forced the IT department to allow employees to use their mobile devices of choice, most notably iOS and Android devices.

The rest, as we say, is history.

The consumerization of IT and the BYOD tsunami has made the IT departments incredibly uncomfortable.  They have “lost control” and are now “at the mercy” of the employees.  This, of course, has fueled many a debate regarding the most appropriate mobility strategy that organizations should develop and what sorts of policies they should implement regarding “acceptable use” of those devices.  Unfortunately, we have still seen high profile legal instances that have gone all the way to the Supreme Court of The United States.

What if there were another scenario?  What if there were a way for IT departments to C.O.P.E. with user needs, all the while stay in some sort of a comfort zone by having control of the devices?  Sure, many organizations have deployed enterprise mobility management solutions to reign in the BYOD tsunami, but most have done so because they had to (vs. seeing an opportunity to empower their workforce).

So what if we flipped the BYOD conversation to a model that is the antithesis of Henry Ford’s vision?  What if we moved to a Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled environment (see, aren’t I cute there, adding yet ANOTHER acronym in this alphabet soup space?).

The vision of what COPE would be is as follows.

The IT department would provide you ANY mobile device you want…that’s because they have embraced the Consumerization of IT (more on the distinction between consumerization and BYOD here).  However, as opposed to trying to find a way to secure the corporate data that will reside on the employees’ personal devices, why not instead provide the employees a means to put some personal content on their work devices?  The device (and the corporate data that resides on it) is fully managed and controlled, but also allows for employees to install the apps they like for their personal use.  We already see this in many organizations where employees are installing their favorite media players and their music or personal photos on their laptops…so why not extend that to the other mobile devices?  Aren’t they already COPE-ing with those laptops?

There are other benefits that come from the COPE model that you won’t find from BYOD.  The original premise of BYOD was (in one respect) to help reduce corporate expenses.  Made sense when you’re looking to cut costs.  However, the only way in my opinion where BYOD can truly be cost effective, is if the employee pays for their devices and the totality of their service plans. Too often I see companies fully reimburse the price of the device, or the service plans or make employees fill out a reimbursement form to get their monthly stipend.  There are zero economies of scale in these scenarios that truly provide long term cost savings to the organization.  On the flip side, through savvy Wireless Expense Management, organizations leveraging the COPE model could negotiate great contracts with the wireless carriers to get steep discounts on devices, upgrades, as well as voice, data and messaging plans.

How is this not a win/win?

Now mind you, we’ll still need to see organizations deploy enterprise mobility management solutions, but wouldn’t the COPE model bring more IT departments into a comfort zone that would actually still allow employees to use the mobile devices that work best for them and not have the good people in the IT department suffer from premature baldness?

So, in closing, before you say that this is a six of one, half-dozen of the other scenario, I will respectfully challenge that.  Yes, in one respect it is….but it’s also about perspective.  This is a “help me help you” moment.  This is about how the organization can actually embrace the consumerization of IT and principles of IT Service Management where the IT department becomes a true business enabler.

Would love to hear (see?) your thoughts on this.

Feb092012
9 Comments

Understanding The Difference Between The Consumerization of IT and BYOD

Philippe Winthrop

Twitter is such an amazing tool/phenomenon.  There was even a recent study that argued that it (along with other social media platforms like Facebook) can be as, if not more addicting than illegal drugs.  It does however have some very useful applications.  One such application are the TweetChats (is that even what they’re called?).  I participated in one today as a prelude to the CITE event in San Francisco in the beginning of March (4-6 to be precise).  I participated in the chat because I’ll be speaking there on a couple of different enterprise mobility sessions.

One interesting conversation that percolated during the TweetChat was the ever popular topic of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and the Consumerization of IT.  A lot of people were using the terms interchangeably, and unfortunately, I can’t help but feel as if that does the two issues a disservice. It’s understandable though that the two terms would be used interchangeably given how they are so inter-related, but they are none the less two distinct issues.  If you don’t mind, today, I ‘d like to share my take on what the two mean.

Let me start with the easy one.  BYOD.  That’s about as straight forward as it gets.  People want to bring into the workplace the devices that they have purchased for their own use because they have made a conscientious choice in terms of product preference.  Gone are the days where employees will quietly accept whatever the IT department has mandated they use as employees.  Work is no longer 9 to 5 and given our never ending desire to be constantly connected, we are now working more and more during “off hours” (whatever the heck that means)…so why not use the devices we like most for both personal and professional use?  OK…BYOD easily defined.

The next one is far more nuanced.  The Consumerization of IT – and on this little spot on the Internet – the Consumerization of Enterprise Mobility, is technically NOT the same as BYOD.  I’ve said it a thousand (million?) times that the Consumerization of Enterprise Mobility as manifested by BYOD is the radical departure.  So what does Consumerization of IT mean?  The short short version is that IT should not be complicated or complex to use.  “Consumer” products are supposed to be “easy” to install and use (although some home gadgets still come with instruction manuals the size of War and Peace).  “Consumer” devices are supposed to be intuitive and just work out of the box.  It makes me think of the Ronco Rotisserie, where the guy would say “Set it and Forget it!”

This is why Apple has had so much success with its iOS devices.  They just work….and for the most part, you can “Set it and Forget it!” (although you’re probably going to end up playing Angry Birds all day.

So today, every company is looking for ways to improve the usability (and the aesthetics) of their products.  Why should you have to click or tap on four different buttons if you should be able to do it in one or two?  That’s what Consumerization is all about (at least in my opinion).  In fact, there’s a great irony.  In the “old” days, we would always say that Consumer Grade was inferior to Enterprise Grade.  My how things have changed.  Nowadays, we expect even our Enterprise products to have great Consumer experiences.  Part of that comes from the flip side of the Consumerization of IT.

The IT-ization of the Consumer.

We have all become more tech savvy (even my mom).  We know how to use a laptop, we expect to find things in The Cloud (whatever the heck that is) and we also expect to be able to do the same things we do on our PCs on our mobile devices.  When we have our IT departments say “you can’t do that” or “we’ll have that in about six months,” we now call BS and say, “Oh please, there’s a new (almost) free service that lets me do this in five minutes….why can’t I just use that?  (I could go on an ITSM tangent but I won’t today).

So back to BYOD vs. Consumerization.  Take the following example.  Your company was a 100% corporate liable BlackBerry shop and then decided to allow employees to order whatever device they want….but still purchased by the company.  That’s clearly a scenario where the Consumerization of IT has impacted IT’s decision making process.  What if every employee in this scenario chose BlackBerry devices (I know, I know…)? That’s still Consumerization…but obviously not BYOD.

So in closing, BYOD and Consumerization of IT are two very important trends that will definitely have an impact on the workplace for years to come.  It’s important to understand that they are distinct concepts with some overlap, and an equal amount of mutual exclusivity.

 

Feb062012
5 Comments

Lessons Learned In Enterprise Mobility in Retail

Philippe Winthrop

This was, admittedly, a rather disappointing weekend.  No no…I’m not talking about the emotionally crushing defeat that my beloved New England Patriots suffered yesterday in Superbowl XLVI.  I’m talking instead about a visit I made to a “Big Box” retail store.  I went to that store looking at kitchen appliances.  The most exciting part of that visit was when I realized that all the salespeople in that department were carrying iPads.

Much to the frustration of my spouse, I stopped asking questions about appliances and instead focused my inquiries around the sales person’s experience using the iPad in a retail environment.  Would you be surprised if I told you that a couple of other sales people overheard the conversation and voiced their own opinions?  I was super excited to hear what they had to say.  I explained to them that I work in “this” space and was keen to understand what they liked and didn’t like about carrying the device around.

Let’s just say I was very surprised by the sales people’s reactions on the subject.  They did not like carrying the iPad around.  They actually thought it reduced their productivity.  I (obviously) needed to hear more.

Firstly, they simply did not like having to carry the 1lb device with them all day.  Sure, the iPads were in a protective cover and sling, but the sling made it look like all the sales people had broken clavicles.  It was just “annoying.”

Second, they found the application slow – very slow.  Sure, it was convenient (in one respect) to be able to show customers product brochures, as well as pricing and inventory on the mobile devices, but it took forever to load the information on the devices (even though it appeared as if the iPads were on WiFi and not WWAN).  But here’s the kicker….you still have to go to the cash register to actually make a purchase.  One salesperson said something to the effect of

“What’s the point of having all this information on the tablet if I still have to go back to the terminal to complete the purchase?”

Sounds like a fair question to me.

There was a wonderful lesson to be learned here that I felt compelled to share with you all regarding your enterprise mobility deployments.  There’s no question that mobile devices and mobile applications can improve employee productivity and customer satisfaction…if done right.  What I learned however was that the “right” includes some subtle and not-so-subtle factors.

Speed and performance of an application are a given.  You always want to ensure that the applications start up quickly and can access corporate information in a timely fashion.  But who would have thought that the strap could make a difference?  In my not so statistically significant sample size, it turns out it can make a major difference.  However, the fact that the purchase transaction could not be completed, wherever the customer and sales person were on the show floor, seems to defeat the purpose (in my opinion) of having the tablets in a retail environment….they were basically “heavy” brochureware.

So was this mobile application development an abject failure?  No.  The sales people saw the potential of using the iPad in their job, and they have been assured that improvements were going to be deployed “shortly” to improve the functionality and performance of the application, but until then, they found the tablets to be more trouble than they were worth.  That doesn’t sound like good ROI to me.

So with all this said, my final thoughts for you in today’s missive is that your mobile application strategy must take into account far more than just what the application can/will do, but more importantly how the users will be using the devices in the “real world,” and also make sure you take into consideration some less than obvious factors that can ultimately determine how successful your mobile application strategy will be.

Feb012012
5 Comments

The Fourth Amendment Vs. (Mobile) Risk Management

Philippe Winthrop

For better or for worse, the world of enterprise mobility is, in my opinion, saddled with an alphabet soup of acronyms.  EMM, MDM, MAM, WEM, MEAP, MCAP….I could go on and on.  Call it society’s ever increasing need for speed, and a small peppering of ADD (oh, wait…I just did it myself).  One of the newest terms to come up in the last few months is MRM or Mobile Risk Management.  MRM in the EMF’s view (darn it….I did it again!) is the business side of mobile security, meaning what is the impact of data or information loss protection/prevention.

While this is still an emerging topic of discussion, my sense is it’s going to become an increasingly important matter moving forward in our industry.  We’ve already seen signs of this emerging trend at what I’ll call the periphery.  Specifically, I am talking about how risk management is becoming an increasingly important business issue, and it will take precious little time for those discussions to extend into a mobile context.

Take a recent example I just stumbled upon yesterday.  InformationWeek published two days ago an article regarding six former employees and contractors of the US Food and Drug Administration filing a suit against the FDA illegally spied on them by taking a peak inside their personal Yahoo!Mail or Gmail accounts.  In what feels like an increasingly common stand, they are alleging that their Constitutional rights, as defined by the Fourth Amendment (among others) were violated.

This made me instantly think about the mobile consequences.

Specifically, unless you use a mobile device that was provided by your employer and you work in a tremendously highly regulated industry (or are a super big shot at your company) where the practice might be forbidden, you in all likelihood have not only your work email on your smartphone, but your personal email as well…and more and more frequently, you have it all in one unified inbox.

So what is preventing your company from taking a peek at what you’re doing on the device?  Now, before you think I’m being an alarmist or a worry wart, let me put that theory to rest.  I’m not.  Companies have the right to protect their information from all employees – particularly the dumb ones or the ones that may have less than above-board objectives.  But what about good people like you and me:

  • What if I decided for whatever reason to send a file to my personal account from my mobile device for whatever legitimate reason I had?
  • Am I now in breach of my company’s policies?
  • Do they have the right to monitor that action?
  • What is deemed “excessive” searching?
  • Is it a different situation if I am using a corporate liable device vs. an individually liable device?
  • Should I use a device that supports dual personas such that there is a clear segmentation of my personal vs. professional life?

Can my organization take a peak at what I’m doing?  I don’t know.  The economist in me wants to start off any answer I could come up with by saying “Well, it depends…”  That’s not particularly satisfying to me, though.  The main problem is that I’m not sure many people are going to have straight forward answers to these questions and the myriad other questions that will emerge as organizations continue to expand their risk management strategies for the mobile world.

Furthermore, there isn’t much legal precedence in mobile risk management.  Sure, we had Sgt. Quon vs the City of Ontario, CA a couple of years ago, but that was a lawsuit (again leveraging the 4th Amendment) that was all about inappropriate use of a corporate liable device during “off-hours.”

I guess my final thought/suggestion is that, moving forward, we will definitely need to keep our eyes and ears peeled around mobile risk management and the impact of mobile security breaches.

Jan302012
3 Comments

Social Networking: Complete Waste of Time, and the Future of Enterprise Communications

Craig Mathias

Who was it that said that life is full of contradictions? Today’s topic is indeed one of those, at least at first glance. I’m a guy who doesn’t have a Facebook account. I do have a Twitter account, but I don’t use it. I’m on Linkedin because I thought it might be a good idea to have an online resume, especially since my company’s Web site is perpetually under construction (to be fixed shortly; really, I mean it this time…) – and that says something in itself. The Web as key to business? I don’t think so. We’ve been in business for going on 21 years, and in that time we’ve had a perpetually-unfinished Web site and all of four – four – days with nothing in particular to do. Indeed, I’m going to argue the unthinkable here, at least for a moment – social media, the epitome of Web culture and the savior of profitability, growth, and all of the goodness in western civilization and beyond, is largely a waste of time.

How can this be? The Web, after all, is replete with stories of successful social-network marketing campaigns, and, well, sure, that success may indeed be the case. But social media, I think we can almost entirely agree, is often a huge distraction, what with keeping up with the adventures of Aunt Sophie’s cat, Tiffany’s new boyfriend, the Pats going to the Super Bowl, the other team at that game, the, what the heck, insert-sports-team-here, and, god forbid, the Kardashians, taking the place of more productive efforts that, well, just might be good for the business of someone other than the aforementioned entities.

Look, even as an engineer with limited social skills, I’ll be the first to admit that business is really much more about people and their relationships  than any other element. Social networks absolutely help people to keep in touch. But my argument is how such touch-keeping may (read: is often) negatively impacting workplace productivity. It’s the equivalent of going to a concert the night before the final exam (which I personally might have done myself once or twice lo those many years ago) – instant gratification at the expense of the creation of real value. Another example I frequently use harkens back to the early days of personal computing when screen saver programs (an absolute necessity in the days of CRT screens that literally would burn if subjected to an unchanging image for some time) were all the rage. Whereas just about any occasionally-changing image would work (I wrote such a program that literally bounced a single asterisk, pong-style, around the screen), people would spend hours configuring flying toasters and such. Whereas real productivity with a PC required a lot of effort, from actual skill in using DOS-based applications to simple patience with the primitiveness of it all, such time invested in flying-toaster optimization yielded a sense of accomplishment and self-worth absent in ordinary high-tech labor. But it was, to quote someone else, a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. No real value was created beyond temporary and very personal gratification, and activities with real benefit are at best deferred.

So – flash forward to today’s ego-massaging distractions – how much productivity is wasted on social media every day at work? No one knows, but I’d guess a lot. But – and here’s the good news – like fire, guns, and computers, there’s a yang to all this yin. Going back to the title of this piece, I really believe that social networks, deployed as enterprise tools with closed user groups and security, are the essential future of enterprise information systems. Really! Such solutions would include all manner of unified voice/data communications, record-keeping, shared workspaces, and much more, replacing disjoint applications like e-mail, productivity suites, personal information management, and various forms of conferencing with a single virtual locale serving as a focus for any (human) workgroup. Hey, while we’re at it, let’s extend the concept to the entire value chain – suppliers, partners, consultants, customers – everyone! That’s really powerful. And, of course, all of this would be available on a wide variety of devices, over a wide variety of networks, so mobile users need never be out of the loop, out of touch, or otherwise unavailable unless one chooses to be such. If the success of any enterprise depends upon the effective flow of information, and as I have contended for years, it does, the social-network model is perhaps the best metaphor for work we’ve come up with yet. And, lord knows, anyone who entered the workforce within the last five years, and all who are to follow, will be right at home as this transition takes place. Yes, this is that big. “Seismic” doesn’t quite capture the tectonics at work here (pun intended).

Which is why I am pleased to be Co-Chairing a new event, Mobile Connect, to be held in Boston this June. This conference exists at the intersection of enterprise, social, mobile, and wireless, and will for the first time explore the technologies, opportunities, mechanics, and ramifications of (mobile) social media shifting to the very core of enterprise IT. And The EMF’s own Philippe Winthrop has graciously agreed to serve on the Advisory Board, so you know this event is going to be good.  More on this over the next few months, but I hope you can attend.

In the meantime, get back to work. Your boss asked me to put that in.

Jan232012
2 Comments

Bricks & Mortar Should Embrace and Not Fear The Savvy Mobile Shopper

Philippe Winthrop

It’s (once again) a great day to be a Boston sports fan.  The late (and great) Myra H. Kraft must have called in a few favors last night when the New England Patriots squeaked by the Baltimore Ravens for a spot in the forthcoming Super Bowl.  Hopefully she also called in a few favors so that they play better in two weeks than how they performed yesterday (my nails are gone).  In any case, a new week begins, and hence time to think about enterprise mobility.

One of my favorite members of our (not so) little community posted a very interesting link onto Twitter this morning regarding how Target is looking to stop potential customers from “Showrooming.”  The Wall Street Journal describes “showrooming” as

“when shoppers come into a store to see a product in person, only to buy it from a rival online, frequently at a lower price.”

While the article doesn’t make the connection explicitly, I suspect that Target is targeting (all puns intended) the increasing number of shoppers who are showrooming (I call them savvy buyers) and using applications on their smartphones that let them scan a UPC symbol to see if they can find a better price for the product elsewhere.  This is a real issue for traditional brick and mortar retailers that will typically have higher prices than their exclusively online competitors due to the “burdens” of having all the costs associated to the physical point of sale.

So what is Target trying to do to prevent showrooming?  It’s allegedly asking its suppliers to create separate SKUs that are unique to Target….which means comparison shopping becomes that much more difficult.

This article made me think about two things.  First and foremost, I think back to what my uncle told me a few years ago in a 100% non-business related discussion.

Adapt…or die.

My second thought relates to how I have shared my view (ad nauseum) that mobility will impact and be impacted by every facet of the workplace.  In this case, sales are being potentially reduced by mobile technologies.

The traditional big corporate mindset is to erect barriers to such situations.  It’s analogous to the walled gardens that wireless carriers had created historically to lock in customers….uhmm, I mean to provide “exclusive” content.  Look how well that worked out in the long run.

Instead, I think brick and mortar retailers need to adapt to and embrace the mobile trend.  No, I don’t think they are going to die tomorrow because of mobile technologies, and yes, I do realize that they are increasingly using more and more mobile technology in their actual stores, but I am still not seeing tremendous adoption of mobile as a B2C channel where the brick and mortar stores can augment their interaction (and sales) with customers via the mobile channel…because, in the end, that’s what it can be.

Sure there will always be someone that can perhaps provide a product for less money, but I am sure many people feel like me that there is still much value in purchasing things in a physical store.  Apple would certainly tend to agree with me on that front.  Additionally, I may be in the minority here, but when I purchase things that are not CDs, books or the like, I actually prefer to buy them in a store because I can (more) easily return them should I not be satisfied with the purchase.

So back to the mobile opportunity.  While Target does have a mobile app for iOS and Android, I feel as if Target could do so many more things with its mobile application.  Walgreens’ mobile application for example lets you refill your prescription by scanning your old bottle…and you’ll still go make the pick-up at the store (and hopefully make other purchases).  Best Buy lets you make purchases off your mobile…and I can even see the weekly ad (Target does this too), or call the nearest store directly from my app.  They are looking for ways to more deeply connect and interact with their customers on their mobile devices.  I would suggest they consider taking it one step further by providing mobile exclusive  (not web exclusive) deals that can be purchased on the device, and then you decide how you acquire it…meaning whether you pick it up at a store, or have it delivered to you.  That’s leveraging mobility.

Now mind you, I’m not suggesting that is the only thing they can do (I am not a retail strategist), but I am suggesting they seek ways to embrace mobility end-to-end as a long term growth strategy, as opposed to fearing its short term impact on sales.

Jan192012
2 Comments

Apple’s New Textbooks: The Enterprise Mobility Perspective

Philippe Winthrop

As we speak, Apple is showcasing in New York City its new iBooks 2 platform, alongside its new wonderfully immersive Textbooks.  In one respect, I’ve been wondering when this would happen in the education space.  Nevermind the green side of the equation (less trees being turned into pulp), there are wonderful improvements in terms of economies of scale, faster production, and updated editions (not to mention a/v integration) that promises to revolutionize the way we learn.

So, aside from the fact that my kids will laugh at me when I tell them that I had to walk 4 miles (OK…more like 1/4) uphill each way carrying my 40 pound bag full of heavy textbooks while they tote their one pound tablets around, why is my natural inclination to think about the (im)practicalities of this emerging trend?

The education market is obviously divided into two very distinct segments: University and K-12.  In a university context, I think this could be revolutionary.  Take it one step further and you could see individual universities create their own BookStore (a.k.a. private AppStore) where students, once registered in classes, automatically get a list of required books and other materials that are relevant to the class.  The days of waiting in exhaustively long lines at the campus bookstore are soon gone.

There are some pragmatic issues however, even in this scenario.  I gest when I suggest that gone will be the days when a poor college student will be able to either buy used books or sell their books back at the end of the semester for beer money. (Oh please….like you never did that.)  Sure, one hopes that the huge biology text book that cost me almost $100 20 years ago will cost significantly less than its current $200 price tag (my kids are going to trade school, by the way).  But how low will the price be?  $100?  $50?  What about when a student registers for a class, buys the book and then decides to drop the class?  What is the return policy?  Will I ever be able to borrow a book again from a classmate?  It doesn’t appear to be the case.

The point however in the higher education market is that there are going to be some very compelling reasons to shift to “modern” eBooks…I do think however, that just like in the regular app environment (because that’s all they are in fact), we’re going to have to think about proprietary (i.e. non public) application distribution and management.  Don’t forget, a University is nothing more than its own workplace with thousands of people in the community.

Let’s switch to the K-12 arena.  iTunes shows me that McGraw-Hill is offering a high school chemistry book for $14.99.  That’s obviously significantly less than the price of a University book, but since when are the students required to buy their textbooks? (For the record, I have no idea what the process is now, but I would assume that kids still aren’t required to buy their own study materials in K-12)  Let’s assume that k-12 students still get their books from their school.  Does the Apple VPP program apply here?  How will it work?  Don’t forget that the VPP program would suggest that the student would own the books and not the school.  I’m sure local school superintendents with their meager budgets would be thrilled with that.  Let’s not forget the linchpin of this new iBook 2 program.

The iPad.

Apple’s end goal, just like with iTunes, is to sell more iPads.  It’s looking to repeat the wonderful success it has had with iPods and iPhones via music and apps.  How many families can afford to buy multiple iPads for their children?  Let’s say your family can’t afford to buy an iPad, are you not going to get an education?  Obviously not.  Is the school going to have to provide you an iPad?  If that is the case, this begs for schools to manage and secure those tablets to ensure that our younglings aren’t doing (or seeing) anything deemed “inappropriate.”  (making the case for enterprise mobility management in K-12) That will also open up a can of worms from insane/angry parents vs. school committees.

So at the end of this missive, I have more questions than answers.  I have no doubt that iBooks 2, and its competition will revolutionize the way people learn.  I just fear that the industry may not be fully ready for its implications.

 

Jan172012
3 Comments

A Brief Recap of The 2012 AppNation Enterprise Summit

Philippe Winthrop

I love being a road warrior.  While it can be a drag at times to have to explain to people that my office is seat 8C on United Airlines, it does keep me in check with my better half.  I may, however, have taken it to the extreme last week.  After an 18 hour trip back home from South America, it only took me 2.5 hours to be back at the airport to go to my first conference of the year.  One of my dear enterprise mobility colleagues called me mental.  He might be right, but I simply prefer to describe it as being intensely passionate about enterprise mobility.  Tomayto…tomahto.  I was on my way to the AppNation Enterprise Summit in San Francisco.

Let me start off by saying that I think this was a great inaugural event.  The conference organizers seemed to attract the majority of the “who’s who” in enterprise mobility (how the heck did I get in there???), as well as other organizations that are at the periphery of our sector (more on that later).

I moderated a session on mobile application lifecycle management.  That’s a big word (and yet another acronym in our alphabet soup (mALM).  The key takeaway for me from that session is that organizations need more and more to think about mALM.  The reason being, because we are very quickly (at least in the Western World) moving well beyond basic PIM functionality and thinking more and more about how we can mobilize back end applications.  That’s going to require organizations to think methodically about the entire process, which includes:

  • Developing the business case
  • Development
  • Distribution
  • Management
  • Security
  • Measurement (and Updates)

It’s important to note that this application lifecycle management applies to B2B, B2E and B2C mobile applications…and in fact, all three types need to be managed as part of one holistic strategy.  That’s a big issue in my opinion because, all too often, mobile application development and deployment is being done in silos within organizations.  My general belief is that it’s fine for various lines of business to develop their own applications, but it needs to be done in a centralized fashion spearheaded (read: supported) by the IT department…or preferably the Office of Mobility.

I participated in another panel, moderated by another EMF member, Maribel Lopez.  She asked me one very interesting question…and even warned me that she might hit me with her tablet if she didn’t like my answer.  The question was “What are we going to be talking about when we have this panel next year?”  I told her that I thought we were STILL going to be having the BYOD debate….you know, the topic that just won’t die no matter how much we try to put it to bed.  Fortunately for me, she agreed with me.  I think BYOD will still be a heated discussion at a global level.  Remember that North America is arguably at the cutting edge of enterprise mobility, and from my personal experience across the globe, it feels as if the rest of the world is between 12 and 18 months behind where we are here in America.

So back to my earlier point on the periphery of enterprise mobility.  I was referring to “consumer” apps that are increasingly getting entrenched in the workplace.  There were a lot of sessions at the conference with panelists from “consumer” mobile application vendors…companies like Box.net and EverNote.  These free apps are serving real needs for people (notice how I did not say employees) and are finding their way into the workplace.  Sound familiar?  It’s BYOA….bring your own apps.  I understand why this is happening (IT not serving the real needs of the mobile workplace), but I do also believe that organizations need to step up and get ahead of this growing trend before they start struggling with mobile applications in the same way that they struggled with BYOD.

So there you have it….my first conference recap for 2012.  It was definitely a solid first-time event and would encourage you to consider it the next time they hold it.

Jan102012
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Emerging Global Opportunities In Enterprise Mobility

Philippe Winthrop

It’s about 104 degrees right now in Buenos Aires.  I’m here, one more day than I had planned for my honeymoon because there was a minor problem with the plane that was supposed to take us home yesterday evening.  They grounded the airplane because they couldn’t get the public address system to work in the main cabin.  Don’t they realize that nobody listens to them anyway?  I digress.  How fitting for the 1st missive of the new year that I start digressing in the first paragraph.  At least I’m consistent in my methods.

In any case, you’ll be shocked (note sarcasm) to hear that during my vacation here in South America, I was constantly observing how people were using their cell phones.  I know….I’m a Grade A geek.

Notice however how I actually said cell phones.  During my (admittedly brief) time in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, I was struck (amongst many other things) by the proportion of people walking the streets that did NOT have smartphones.  When I was at a cafe….not a single iPad or tablet.  Actually, that’s not true.  I did see a couple of people with iPads, but guess what?  They were Americans.

I wanted to share this experience with everyone as a means for yet another reality check.  This trip (aside from all the wonderful personal memories that I now have) was a genuine eye opener for me in terms of where North America and the Western World stand in their adoption of (enterprise) mobility solutions, as compared to the rest of the world.  I instantly thought of Stephen Elop, Jim Balsilie and even Steve Balmer when they keep on stressing the global opportunity for mobility goes well beyond what we know in the Western World.  They are 100% correct.  We take for granted that (almost) everyone has a smartphone, and that organizations need mobility management solutions for all the BYOD hardware out there.  The majority of people here still aren’t fixated by their email or Facebook updates while walking the streets.

During my stay here in Buenos Aires, we also had the amazing opportunity to meet up with some distant relatives who have lived here their entire lives.  My distant cousin works for a global tech firm and he explained to me that for those who do carry a smartphone (still a minority), the overwhelming majority of those people get their device from their company.  I guess BYOD is not big here yet.  Maybe it’s time we coin the emergence of “Traiga Tu Proprio Movil” or “TTPM” as the Spanish version of BYOD.

So, all this to say that enterprise mobility is still definitely an emerging GLOBAL trend.  Yes, we have already experienced tremendous growth in the Western World, but from a GLOBAL perspective, I was unbelievably excited to see how much more can occur.  Now, please do me a favor and send good vibes my way so that my bride and I can come back to the US tonight.