Android Angle

Mark Murphy

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The Nexus of the Enterprise

Why Flashable Devices Are Android's Path to Business

By Mark Murphy on Thu, 03/04/10 - 9:45am.

I often tell students and consulting customers that enterprises and malware authors have many of the same interests. They both want to control phones, irrespective of the wishes of the users of those phones. Malware authors do this with ill intent. Enterprises have their reasons, as well, as varied as the businesses themselves.

Off-the-shelf Android, though, is more of a consumer operating system. The OS goes to great lengths to allow users to maintain control over their devices, from being able to stop background processes to ensuring the HOME button cannot be blocked. Many things that Android does to block malware, though, also block desired enterprise features, such as the ability to lock out users from installing applications, or logging their use of the browser.

Flashable devices represent the crossroads.

In theory, an enterprise could purchase handsets in bulk (e.g., 10,000) and replace the original Android with one tailored to their needs. Maybe they need data to be stored in encrypted partitions. Maybe they need all Internet communications to go through a VPN, even if it's 3G. Whatever the functionality, the enterprise could have it, just as they have it with their PCs today.

Alas, we're a few steps short of that reality today.

First, few handsets are designed to be flashable. The Nexus One is one of the few marketed as ordinary devices (versus “developer phones”) that openly supports replacing the firmware.

Second, customizing Android firmware is not as simple as customizing Windows. Enterprises will not have the expertise to do this in-house, and there are very few people outside of device manufacturers with those skills...and some of them tend to be categorized as “rogues”.

Third, the enterprise infrastructure to maintain that firmware is lacking. With Windows, there are ways for an enterprise to customize the installs yet still wind up with operating systems capable of being upgraded. That will be substantially more tricky in mobile.

Eventually, flashable handsets will arrive. What is needed is for those flashable handsets to be available to enterprises and individuals alike. Some of those individuals will wind up getting expertise in creating customized Android firmware, and the firms those individuals create will be the ones helping the enterprises — and, by extension, the device manufacturers — meet their needs as well.

Meeting the needs of enterprises is just one reason why device manufacturers need to be more willing to release devices designed to have replacement firmware flashed. If you know of other business reasons why manufacturers should do this, hop over to this post and toss in a comment. The more solid business arguments for allowing replacement firmware we can come up with, the better the odds are that, one day, flashable devices will be the norm, not the exception.