* Fighting consumer mobile devices could be a losing proposition
Has the time come to brandish the white flag and simply embrace any old mobile device that makes its way into the enterprise? Maybe, according to some experts.
Maintaining an edict to keep out mobile computers that are deemed not up to corporate security and management code has grown unrealistic, according to Michael Finneran, president of dBrn Associates, a unified communications consultant in Woodmere, N.J.
“We can no longer dictate the equipment and services users should have,” he says. “We need to take a more consumer-oriented approach and expand so that all popular options are on the list [of enterprise-sanctioned user devices].”
Eek! What about the top-down security and management that’s so important to organizations everywhere for lots of good reasons?
Finneran indicates that it’s all about creating policy, informing users, having them sign off on policy, and reminding them often of it.
He suggests having different rules for different platforms. For example, one policy might be that “if it’s an iPhone, users can’t store any corporate data on it, but they can on a BlackBerry,” Finneran says. The idea is that rather than flat-out saying “no” to user demands, “how can we give them what they want but still do our management job? It’s up to us to come up with set of rules to respond to the organization.”
Finneran and others believe that it’s primarily the Apple iPhone that is driving enterprises toward mobile anarchy in the enterprise and the “I want what I want!” user rant.
“I see BlackBerry to iPhone as the trend,” says Chris Nowak, CTO at Anthony Marano in Chicago. At the fruits and vegetables wholesaler, anyway, “you don’t go from BlackBerry to Nokia or other platform. You go to the iPhone.”
That said, most mobile device management vendors are attempting to add iPhone support of some degree into their top-down management and security products. Among those vendors supporting the iPhone with a client agent are Good Technology, MDSL, MobileIron, Telwares and Trust Digital.
