The week before the 2010-11 school year began at Indiana University, Sue Workman, associate vice president for communication and support, was preparing for the onslaught — not just returning students, but their wireless devices, too.
Workman expects an average of two Wi-Fi-enabled devices per student, be they smartphones, tablets, netbooks, laptops, gaming systems, e-readers, MP3 players “and who knows what else,” she says. Thanks to a proliferation of devices with built-in Wi-Fi, Workman believes wireless growth will be exponential this year. (Read more about tech gadgets for college students in our back-to-school guide.)
The explosion has caused big changes for IT at Indiana University, and there will be even more in the next year. “We’ve had to do some realignment to prioritize the technologies we want to support and then make sure we have the right resources allocated to them,” she says.
Last year, Workman’s group saw an ever-increasing variety of netbooks and smartphones, including many more Apple iPhones, and university-developed iPhone applications. This year, IT is gearing up to support Windows 7 devices, Android applications, Microsoft Office 2010 Web Apps and new teaching models for Apple’s iPad.
As IT shops across all industries begin allowing a wider variety of consumer technologies, they must determine how their help desks will support all of those devices. Changes include more training (of both IT and business employees), increased staffing, self-help systems, social networking support forums, reorganized support organizations and tiered support strategies.
The challenge is heightened by the speed of innovation at the consumer level, where new products are likely to arrive every six to eight months, compared with every 12 to 18 months for corporate technology, says Dan Quigley, vice president of IT at Aflac Inc.
Another factor is the variation among consumer devices that run the same operating system, says John Kresslein, CIO at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). For example, while some Android smartphones can connect to Exchange through ActiveSync, others require third-party software, while still others don’t enforce automated security rules such as password policies, he says.
Changes Ahead
An onslaught of new issues is forcing IT managers like Workman to reorganize their IT organizations to free up resources to support new computing models. In the coming year, she intends to start using desktop virtualization technology in an effort to manage PCs with fewer resources, and she’s forging relationships with IT teams across the university to build a unified community that can leverage each group’s expertise and resources.
At Texas Health Resources, the IT shop has had to change its approach to support, not just because users are continually bringing in the latest consumer devices, but specifically because physicians want to run electronic health records (EHR) systems on those devices. In the past 18 months, Texas Health changed its BlackBerry-only policy and now supports Windows and Android devices and iPhones as well.
“We’ve seen a huge increase in demand among physicians for iPhone support,” says CIO Ed Marx, and that means IT has to figure out how to handle connectivity, privacy, access and security for those devices.
With the advent of EHRs, Marx also expects to begin supporting more iPads and other tablet computers — including models that run Windows, and Hewlett-Packard Co.’s forthcoming tablet. “There’s a huge desire to move away from laptops on carts,” he says.
To absorb the extra support requirements, Marx cross-trained support staffers, streamlined service desk processes using ITIL-type methodologies and implemented some automated processes. He also plans to increase staffing by 15% next year. Perhaps most important, when the organization’s mobile strategy is being discussed, IT leaders are now involved in the talks to ensure that the department can provide support. “The service desk is becoming more and more strategic,” Marx says.
At Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., interactive self-help and social networking forums have noticeably reduced the number of how-to calls to the help desk. That’s a good thing, considering the number and variety of mobile systems the consulting firm now supports, thanks to its focus on giving employees the freedom to work from different locations. “We have devices to fit the preferred working style of most people,” says CIO Frank Smith.
The past year has seen emerging roles for tablets, PDAs, netbooks and laptops, as well as a blending of PBXs, computers and cell phones to keep employees in closer contact, he says. Booz Allen also uses find-me/follow-me communications services, in addition to other location-independent services, such as Avaya Inc.’s Extension to Cellular, which transfers calls from office phones to mobile phones without interruption.
Next year, employees will likely increase their use of interpersonal videoconferencing systems, as well as the iPad and other tablets, especially those like Cisco’s Cius, which integrates with the existing security infrastructure, says Smith. “A lot of this is evolving, but there’s demand for a lightweight e-mail/Web browser tool, and I believe we’ll see more applications for these devices at the enterprise level,” he says.
For the support group, this has meant more training, more staff and “a deepening of competence in multiple disciplines through experience, exposure and trying to not roll out anything without knowing how we’ll support it,” Smith says. It has also meant a lot of employee education in the form of brown-bag lunch meetings, briefings, newsletters and webinars, aided by social networking forums where discussions can be continued.
The bottom line is, keeping up with employee demand — and addressing the security and support implications of all the new devices — takes a lot of time. NRECA’s Kresslein can attest to that. In the coming year, he plans to research antivirus software for smartphones and find the most secure way to deploy e-book readers.
So far, his group has looked at the iPad, which relies on Internet downloads, and the BeBook Neo, which uses supplemental memory. The latter “wouldn’t touch the network, so the only security concern is the types of documents people are storing on the device,” Kresslein says. He also devised a way for employees to safely use Skype, by connecting via a netbook that operates outside the corporate network.
Issues like this — multiplied — are influencing Kresslein to take measures such as limiting the Android devices IT supports to those that work well with ActiveSync. “We’ve had to prioritize more of our projects,” he says. “Smartphones have taken more of a lead lately because consumers want them, but they take more time to make sure they’re secure.”
Brandel is a Computerworld contributing writer. Contact her at marybrandel@verizon.net.
