The smartphone and tablet marketing
strategies of Apple and Google are having a disruptive impact on enterprise
mobile device strategies, according to Ovum.
The two dominant players are turning
traditional enterprise mobile device initiatives on their heads.
Apple and Google’s decisions to target
solely consumers with their devices is reducing the role of the IT department,
and handing control to employees, with the rise of the “bring your own device”
(BYOD) phenomenon. This, in turn, is increasing the device data security and
management challenges for organisations, and is driving a boom in mobile device
management services.
“Apple and Google’s marketing and product
strategies for iPhone and Android are geared toward the consumer market, not
the demanding enterprise market,” said Richard Absalom, Ovum consumer
impact IT analyst and author of the report.
In the past, enterprises have driven
adoption of the latest computing hardware, having been courted by device
manufacturers and distributors for large volume orders. However, the huge
popularity of iOS and Android devices in consumer markets means enterprises are
now having to respond to employee demand to use devices that the enterprise has
no control over, to access corporate data and applications.
This is shifting enterprises away from the
traditional model of IT department control and forcing them to plug the gap
with a BYOD strategy. With Apple and Android driving the BYOD trend, the
individual employee will become an increasingly important primary device
channel into the enterprise.
The BYOD trend among enterprises is here to
stay for as long as Apple and Google maintain their current market
strategies.
The constant stream of new mobile devices
pushed to consumers means that BYOD is here to stay, at least in the medium
term. Consumers are willing and able to replace their mobile phone or tablet at
a quicker rate then their employer can afford to, and they expect to be able to
use their latest gadget to improve productivity in the workplace.
Ovum’s research finds that the security
issues that the BYOD trend poses for enterprises have spawned extraordinary
growth for mobile device management platform (MDM) vendors during the past 12
months, due to their ability to help enterprises cope with the influx of new
platforms and devices on to the corporate network.
“Apple currently dominates the BYOD trend,
and its periodic releases of new iPhones, iPads, and iOS make it relatively
easy for enterprises to keep these employee-owned devices manageable and
secure. However, the rise of Android and the forthcoming push on the Windows
Phone pose increased security problems due to their dispersion across an
ever-increasing number of devices,” Absalom added.
This rate of innovation means that MDM
vendors are here to stay. It is unrealistic for most IT departments to keep up with
every device, platform, and API update needed to keep their data secure.
By Telecomlead.com Team
