Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future: soti

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All MWC2013 Video Interviews with Mobile Experts

If you missed any of my recent Mobile World Congress 2013 interviews with mobility experts, here is your chance to watch them all in one place. Grab some popcorn!

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

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Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Kevin Benedict's Mobile World Congress 2013 Interviews: Ron Hassanwalia

If you are interested in learning more about mobile device management and mobile security this short video is for you. I filmed this in Barcelona, Spain at the Mobile World Congress 2013. The first minute is a bit blurry, but then clears up. My iPhone must not have been paying attention to where I was filming. In this interview Ron Hassanwalia from www.Soti.net explains many features in an MDM. Grab some popcorn!

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN-vNkHG8NM&feature=share&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Mission Critical - Mobile Device Management and Control

Have you ever thought about how a company should manage battery life on a smartphone when they support a BYOD IT environment? Think about it, a person brings their own smartphone to work that only has 10% battery charge, they drive 40 miles out to a job site and their battery dies. They have a dead device when they should be updating work orders, inventory levels, schedules, job status and new product sales.

I am personally impatiently waiting for the release of iPhone 5, because my iPhone does not hold its charge any longer. By about 1 PM, my battery is getting low. I am lucky I don't need to use it to take product orders and scan bar codes throughout the rest of the afternoon. If this impacted my productivity, and I had an employer, I wonder if they would ask me to go out and buy a new personal device?

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In many industries and businesses it is not enough to simply hope your workforce manages their personal mobile devices efficiently and reliably, as the business is too dependent upon it.

MDM (mobile device management) systems are intended to help a company manage mobile devices. There are many MDM solutions available on the market, but many cannot remotely control and access a mobile device, and that is critical. A few like Soti (www.soti.net) enable remote access and control of mobile devices and this enables the IT helpdesk to efficiently trouble shoot and manage mobile devices to ensure efficient use through out the day. Soti can even monitor your battery use, and automatically optimize your devices use of the battery.

In a scenario where the business depends upon the efficient and reliable use of a mobile device, it is critical that the company have management control of the mobile device. This, however, can present some complexity. In some countries this is not legal. In businesses where there are unions, the unions may not approve, and your employees may simply not permit it. These complexities may influence entire industries and geographical areas to insist on company owned mobile devices. This does not remove all complexities, but helps.

In businesses where company owned mobile devices are supported, MDM vendors like Soti, can collect data on the various manufacturers' device specifications, and then document their performance against the specs. This is very important. If a manufacture says a battery should last for 1,000 charges before it is replaced, data can be collected on each device to monitor when it was charged and predictions can be made as to when more batteries will need to be purchased. In addition, the collected data can be used to hold manufacturers accountable to their specs, and the data can be compared with the performance of other mobile device manufacturers.

Some MDM vendors have mobile clients that can turn even the most powerful consumer grade smartphone into a purpose built mobile device by controlling and limiting access to only the work apps. For example, a new Android phone can be limited to only a credit card swiper, bar code scanner and work order management system with SMS. All the other apps that are available will not be seen or accessed. This gives businesses the ability to buy off-the-shelf smartphones and use them strictly for business.

The down side of this scenario is that the mobile workforce would likely be all carrying two different mobile devices, one for work and one for their personal use. This is not ideal, but may be the reality until something more clever comes along.

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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst and Mobile Strategy Consultant

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: I am a mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

MDM is Not Dead - Ask the Right Questions

In my former career as the CEO of a mobile application company, I remember my professional services team coming into my office one day and asking me to buy licenses of an MDM (mobile device management) solution from a vendor called Soti. My team wanted to be able to troubleshoot new mobile applications on a large variety of different mobile devices. They wanted remote access to both the device and the apps so they could understand bugs and issues that were reported from the field. This is still a very useful feature.

Today, however, few of the MDM/MAM vendors adequately support this feature. In my experience, the ability to have remote access and remote control of a mobile device is very useful. I recently interviewed a CEO who shared how it had taken several years and many rounds of change management classes to get his field services technicians comfortable and using mobile technology. In these kinds of work environments, the team deploying the mobile technology is often struggling to understand if reported software bugs are real, a lack of user knowledge, or a mobile device issue. In these cases it is far easier for the help desk or professional services team to simply take remote control of the device and investigate the issue themselves.

My professional services team found remote access and remote control to be the fastest way to understand and resolve mobile solution issues. I would strongly recommend that you ensure your MDM/MAM vendor provides this capability, especially if you are working on customized mobile applications.

Another interesting MDM requirement I have seen in many secure and classified work environments involving research, government and military organizations, is the need to control different mobile applications based on the geographic (GPS) location. For example, when you enter a particular campus your mobile device camera, Bluetooth and audio recording apps are automatically disabled. When you leave that geo-fenced area, they are again enabled. This solution combines GPS tracking, geo-fencing and remote device control.

One of my friends, who is an SAP Mentor, shared that her university work site for years would not allow mobile devices to be brought to work because they contained cameras that were not allowed on the secure research site. That policy evolved to mobile devices needing to have tape over their camera lenses. Of course, we can all guess how effective that was.

Many of the MDM/MAM vendors today seem only to target today's consumer type smartphones and mobile applications. However, in many industries with mission critical mobile applications running on ruggedized industrial grade mobile smartphones and handheld computers, there is a need for a much stronger mobile device management solution.

It is interesting to me that many MDM/MAM vendors champion the cause of BYOD (bring your own device) at work but then don't support that environment. Many of the MDM/MAM vendors still have a very difficult time supporting all Android OS versions and manufacturer's devices. When you are selecting an MDM vendor, dig deep with your questions in this area. Find out, in truth, what exact Android devices and OS versions they can support. It is almost always a limited subset. Ask if they have the ability to remote access and remote control mobile devices. If not, that is OK as long as you understand that up front and it fits your needs. You just don't want to be surprised and disappointed later.

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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst, Mobile Strategy Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility and Sybase Unwired Platform Groups

Read The Mobility News Weekly

Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Changing Times for Enterprise Mobility

As I was running this morning in the Boise foothills, OK walking at a brisk pace, I was pondering how fast enterprise mobility is evolving. Today, HTML5 and Android security are critical check box items for any company considering standardizing on a mobile application development platform and a mobile application management platforms.

The MAM (mobile application management) and MDM (mobile device management) vendors have all been working hard to bring order out of chaos in the Android space as demonstrated by this recent announcement, "SOTI Inc., an Enterprise Mobility Device Management (MDM) vendor, has unveiled new technology that enables corporations to consistently manage security policies across Android devices from all manufacturers." It has been a challenge for most vendors to provide enterprise quality security for Android devices due to the many different versions of the Android OS that manufactures use. Most vendors would only support or secure a limited subset early on. It seems vendors are becoming more confident in their abilities these days, as measured by the number of recent announcements around securing Android devices that I read about.

On the topic of HTML5, most vendors now have an HTML5 hybrid solution and strategies that enables them to add proprietary features to a container that supports HTML5. This container enables them to solve problems and address challenges that may not yet have been addressed in the HTML5 standard.

I would advise that you regularly get briefing from your mobile vendors of choice about developments in these two areas as they are fast moving. I would also recommend against purchasing from a mobile vendor that does not have HTML5 or HTML5 hybrid solution or strategy, and have answers to how you can secure Android devices.

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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst, Mobile Strategy Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility and Sybase Unwired Platform Groups

Read The Mobility News Weekly

Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Finally the Tide of Rugged Android Devices Begins

In my opinion, Microsoft blew it when they left the rugged mobile device manufacturers hanging for years with no meaningful upgrades or upgrade path to the Windows Mobile 6.5x operating system. They sentenced the ruggedized device industry to compete against the iPhone, iPad and Android consumer devices. This meant service organizations worldwide started considering the merits of switching to consumer devices, with new operating systems that had many more features rather than upgrading to new ruggedized mobile devices.

Otterbox and other rugged case manufacturers were definitely the winners of this Microsoft orchestrated industry trend. They produced many great ruggedized cases that added device protection and gave buyers confidence that using consumer devices in rugged environments was worth the risk.

Today, however, the tide of rugged Android devices is starting to enter the market as demonstrated by this marketing piece from Honeywell that I received in the mail today announcing the new rugged Dolphin 7800 EDA running on Android. Here is how they describe it, "Honeywell’s new Dolphin® 7800 Android™ rugged EDA pairs the intuitive Google® Android™ operating system with remote device management capabilities and invaluable security features, making the device enterprise ready."

For a time the Android operating system was difficult to secure, since every device and device manufacturer seemed to have their own version of it, but the MDM (mobile device management) or MAM (mobile application management) vendors have seemed to resolve much of that challenge now as this piece from the MDM/MAM vendor Soti suggests, "SOTI, a leader in cross-platform mobile device management, is announcing that its unique MDM solution provides advanced and consistent management for all Android devices, regardless of the device manufacturer."

I have spoken with and interviewed many rugged handheld manufacturers over the past few months and most if not all have rugged Android devices in development. I believe that going forward service organizations will soon be able to get the latest Android operating system features in the rugged device of their choosing.

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Kevin Benedict, Mobile Industry Analyst, Mobile Strategy Consultant and SAP Mentor Alumnus

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility and Sybase Unwired Platform Groups

Read The Mobility News Weekly

Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Enterprise Mobility Exchange - Brussels

I have the honor of being able to chair the Enterprise Mobility Exchange conference this week in Brussels. I took this photo last evening from my hotel window. I have stayed in worse places.

Here are some of the speakers that I look forward to hearing this week:

Glenn Morgan, Head of Service Transformation, British Airways
Divya Mahajan, Director Architect for Enterprise Integration and SOA, Philips International
Simon Skeet, Retail and Logistics Manager - Groceries Online, Sainsbury's Supermarkets
Nick Capell, CIO/IT Director, Parcelforce Worldwide
Jan Kampfer, European Product Marketing Manager, Panasonic Toughbook
Nicholas McQuire, Research Director, Enterprise Mobility EMEA, IDC Research

I interview a lot of brilliant enterprise mobility experts that work for vendors, but this event is mostly end users sharing their real world experiences. I expect it to be very interesting.

There are over 40 sponsors here, but some we discuss regularly are SAP, Syclo, ClickSoftware, Sky Technologies, Newelo, Motorola, Panasonic Toughbook, Intermec, Soti, etc.

It is interesting to note that Sybase is not here. I spoke to an unnamed Sybase person who said they are traditionally at this event, but there is a bit of confusion as to when Sybase should appear, and when SAP should appear at these events right now. I image this will be worked out soon.

I will be blogging from Brussels this week.

You can follow this event on Twitter at #emeeu.

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Kevin Benedict, Independent Mobile and M2M Industry Analyst, SAP Mentor Volunteer

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the SAP Enterprise Mobility Group

Read The Mobility News Weekly

Read The Mobile Retailing News Weekly

Read The Field Mobility News Weekly

Read The Mobile Money News Weekly

Read The M2M News Monthly

Full Disclosure: I am an independent mobility analyst, consultant and blogger. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Kevin Benedict Ponders the Future

All MWC2013 Video Interviews with Mobile Experts

Kevin Benedict's Mobile World Congress 2013 Interviews: Ron Hassanwalia

Mission Critical - Mobile Device Management and Control

MDM is Not Dead - Ask the Right Questions

Changing Times for Enterprise Mobility

Finally the Tide of Rugged Android Devices Begins

Enterprise Mobility Exchange - Brussels

Interviews with Kevin Benedict

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