With this in mind, Coughlan said that MDM is “very quickly morphing into hybrid device management” as IT departments look “to address traditional form factors and move on into tablets, slates and mobile handsets”. They want, he said, “something that straddles the traditional IT spectrum into their Windows, iOS and Android phones”.
Total security
Staying with security Datapac’s O’Connor said over the past year “infrastructure control and administrative management” have been major influencers in the mobility space. Whereas previously she said this translated into a desire to control and manage “the physical asset”, more recently this has moved to a focus on “total security and not just the protection of the physical device but also the protection of the network with which it interacts and the data which is accessed and/or stored on the mobile device”.
“It is this compliance and data protection issue that is getting most attention at the moment. It is frightening to think that only one in four mobile devices is currently encrypted,” she added.
While these concerns obviously should dictate much of a company’s enterprise mobility strategy, for many employees and indeed those at the top table, the big question is often what devices they will get their hands on. Four years on from the first sighting of the iPad, tablet devices of one kind or another seem to be inseparable from many workers. Indeed, said McGloin for “those in the field” the approach to their devices has changed irreversibly over that time.
“The modern CIO has to accommodate the application needs of the organisation’s end users. More Irish companies are now looking to virtualise and mobilise their application and desktop environments, whether that is on their premises or through hosted virtual desktop services accessible through mobile devices or thin clients,” Tadgh Cashman, Logicalis Ireland
“Up until a few years ago, sales worker who were always on the road for instance were on these rugged Windows 6.5 devices and what we’re seeing now is a move away from those special purpose devices where the support and maintenance costs are often very high way. That’s given way to BYOD or companies giving Apple, Android devices out.”
Behavioural level
Not only is this option cheaper, but on a behavioural level, McGloin said that the instinct to take “better care” of devices which the ‘road warrior’ may use as part of their regular day in addition to their work duties has led to “costs going down in relation to support and maintenance”.
When choosing a device, Dell Ireland client product manager, Lisa Holmes said security questions will once again inevitably rear their head. “Since the launch of Windows 8, many Irish companies are now preferring to evaluate a Windows based product which has been designed specifically for business usage and offer features such as integrated docking, trusted platform module (TPM) chip for security and business warranty,” said Holmes.
Trilogy’s Paddon meanwhile said that in his experience the prevalence of one vendor or platform depends on whether the use of tablets has been assessed and introduced as part of a productivity programme “or they have been purchased by individuals with buying power”.
The Trilogy expert said that many IT departments not unreasonably would like to have mobile devices as part of an integrated architecture so they can support and manage users effectively without resulting in a “massive cost overhead”.
Apple dominance
CWSI’s Warner told TechPro that while Apple’s dominance in the smart phone market has “certainly been challenged in recent years, and there are certainly good challengers in the tablet space”, iPad usage has in fact “maintained its lead in senior levels in Irish companies” compared to rival devices.
Datapac’s O’Connor though, was not so sure. She said that while it has been common to this point for those at the top end of the company to choose to work with an iPad, the divide between Apple, Android and Windows devices is becoming “less and less” noticeable. She said, as newer alternatives come on to the market that are “more slick and robust than their predecessors”, many CEOs, MDs and CIOs are abandoning the Apple allegiances.
“MDM is very quickly morphing into hybrid device management as IT departments look to address traditional form factors and move on into tablets, slates and mobile handsets,” Art Coughlin, Microsoft Ireland
Trilogy’s Paddon commented that “users tend to want to bring their favourite consumer device into the office which has favoured Apple” for some time. The issue with this, said Paddon, is that “Apple as a fairly ‘closed’ system does not always sit well in business IT”. Taking this into account Paddon isn’t surprised that the possibilities offered by Windows 8 — especially in the wake of the latest Microsoft Surface release — have resulted in a strong surge in enterprise usage in 2014.
“There is a view that the third version of a Microsoft product tends to hammer the competition and we are on the third generation of Surface now,” noted the Trilogy man.
User driven
Looking towards the next year, CWSI’s Warner said that the enterprise mobility market is no longer at a point where “individual developments” can dictate a “massive shift in platform”. Instead, Warner reasoned that because smart phones and tablets are “so user-friendly, and cloud-based resources are so accessible” IT departments are now under constant pressure to keep up with user-driven workflows and demands.
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