IBM – Enabling IT Mobility for the Enteprise

By David A. Kelly, Upside Research

IT mobility has taken the enterprise by storm, much in the same fashion as cloud and SOA. While the presence of mobile devices being used in business is not new (who didn’t own a Blackberry through their company 10 years ago?), the meteoric rise of the smart phone as an integral component of all aspects of working is pushing mobility into a completely new stratosphere. According to estimates from Wells Fargo, there are currently more than 600 million smartphones worldwide today. That number is anticipated to grow to 1 Billion by 2015. A staggering number, it shows how quickly mobile devices have pervaded the way we live, and one of the largest impacts has been on how we work.

Given the tremendous opportunities that exist for using mobility in business, enterprises are scrambling to develop cohesive mobility usage policies and environments for building apps and adding mobile capabilities to key business processes. Security is a concern, but the allure of real-time access to business-critical data from anywhere is too tempting to avoid putting pressure on IT to create a mobile environment for the business. As with all other key emerging technologies in the enterprise today (cloud, SOA, big data, etc.) IBM has added mobility to its toolkit to help IT effectively manage the demands for mobile functionality in the enterprise.

At the 2012 IBM Impact Event in May, the company unveiled its first ever IBM Mobile Foundation, a technology offering that leverages IBM’s recent acquisition of Worklight (a vendor of cross-platform mobile application development tools) and spans application development, integration, security and management.  IBM is not new to mobility, and has been steadily investing in mobile technologies for the past decade. However, this launch of IBM Mobile Foundation is intended to coalesce all of the functionality IBM has amassed into a straightforward, enterprise-ready offering that includes:

• Connecting cloud and mobile environments
• Development tools for mobile apps
• Management and security tools
• Services to help speed mobility deployment

There are many twists and turns on the mobility path for the enterprise. Questions like whether to allow ‘BYOD’ (bring your own device) or not, how much access to critical corporate assets to allow, and what the best way is to secure the new vulnerabilities that mobility presents are top of mind for many IT executives. But, the overarching theme is that CIOs want to find a safe way to add mobility to their enterprise, because the upside is quite impressive.

Where to begin? One approach is to engage with a company like IBM to fully understand exactly how its Mobile Foundation is bringing value to businesses and what the typical first steps are. IBM has taken its message on the road, with a series of Impact Comes to You Seminars scheduled through Q3 2012 at locations around the US, Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Perhaps one of these events can shed further light on mobility’s growing role in the enterprise and how organizations can leverage it sooner rather than later.

##############################################

At ICTY 2012, learn how technologies can help you change the game and grow your business. Attend the next Impact Comes to You event:

Costa Mesa, CA – Sept 12, 2012
Edmonton, Canada – Sept 13, 2012
Minneapolis, MN – Sept 18, 2012
Ottawa, Canada – Sept 19, 2012
Nashville, TN – Sept 20, 2012