* Managing heterogeneous mobile environments
If last week’s CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment 2005 show in San Francisco had a theme, I would say it was “heterogeneity.”
There was a growing awareness that multiple mobile operating systems, client devices and even carriers will be a fact of life in the enterprise for the foreseeable future. The reason can be chalked up to differences in enterprise user device preferences and needs, as well as diversity in coverage requirements across domestic and international geographies.
And enterprise IT departments need ways to provide access from all these devices and locations to corporate resources. They also need to centrally manage and secure smart devices that contain sensitive information. These requirements are motivating some vendor companies to act.
For example, the day before the CTIA exhibit floor opened, Palm and Microsoft announced that Palm would be licensing Microsoft’s Mobile 5.0 mobile operating system to run on its Treo 600 and 650 smartphones. As a result, users of the devices will be able to choose between the PalmOS and Windows Mobile 5.0 operating systems. Mobile 5.0-enabled Treos, to be available for use on the Verizon Wireless EV-DO (500K-700K bit/sec) network in early 2006, would allow Treo users to connect to their corporate Exchange e-mail servers and deploy corporate applications written for Windows.
The move exemplifies an acknowledgement that more handhelds need to support access to back-end corporate resources. To date, Treos have succeeded more as consumer-centric devices; the move gives them more of an enterprise play. And, to date, Microsoft operating system-enabled devices do a good job of allowing access to Microsoft resources only. Beyond that, Research In Motion’s BlackBerry, with its Enterprise Server, has been the only architecture allowing users of handhelds access to their full suite of back-end apps.
For getting the enterprise IT control tentacles around disparate devices, operating systems and networks, Good Technology announced that it would support the combo Palm-Mobile 5.0 devices with its centralized management, application-update, and security software. It also plans to support the Symbian OS (Nokia devices) in 2006.
Meanwhile, start-up Orative Technology was on the show floor, explaining that its presence management software is both device- and carrier-agnostic. Orative’s enterprise software enables business users to screen voice calls based on caller identity, subject matter, identity and the called user’s availability. President and CEO Paul Fulton explains that the software runs SSL encryption and single sign-on authentication, and that corporate IT has the ability to centrally deactivate lost phones and erase sensitive information from remote devices.
