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Open Kernel Labs Blog
February 14, 2011
Enterprise Mobility, Productivity, and Privacy
BYOD—Bring Your Own Device to Work and Enjoy It, Too.
This week, Open Kernel Labs is releasing SecureIT Mobile Enterprise, a solution that enables enterprise mobility rollout by providing distinct and secure environments for personal and corporate mobile apps and services. It lets mobile workers access their employer’s business-critical assets – networks, apps and data – while still enjoying the full functionality of their favorite smartphone or tablet.
Most discussion of enterprise mobility focuses exclusively on the benefits of giving mobile workers access to corporate data, networks and applications. In theory, that means making workers more productive while saving on capital equipment costs. In practice, enterprise mobility often means choosing between worker productivity and personal freedom.
So, in this blog, I’d like to examine enterprise mobility from a different perspective – that of mobile workers.
BYOD – Bring Your Own Device to Work
Imagine your employer telling you that you’re allowed to use your own smartphone or tablet to log into the company network, send/receive company email, access the CRM system, check inventory, place orders – to perform almost any task you’d do sitting at a desk inside corporate HQ. You’d contact your IT department to sign up ASAP, right?
Totally jazzed, you present your smartphone or tablet to your friendly IT tech. She informs you that it will take several minutes to install management and security software and a few apps and you’ll be off and running. When you get your device back, your IT person points you to a tutorial explaining how to do stuff like sending/receiving company email, and how access other company resources. She also indicates that the software will automatically back up everything on your phone every day. Wow! Life is good.
Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire
Still very pleased, you head out to lunch with a small group of colleagues – they’ve just had their smartphones and tablets similarly provisioned for enterprise mobility – but they’re not so happy. Over lunch they recount how after the “upgrade”, they can no longer access scores of websites including social media portals, financial services, gaming sites, and other entertainment venues. Some apps that were on their devices (before IT got hold of them) no longer work, and they are having trouble downloading and installing new applications from apps stores.
After lunch, still sanguine, you track down your friendly IT tech. She candidly explains that to ensure security, they’ve been forced to “black list” many websites and apps – she doesn’t have the whole list because it’s maintained by a third-party vendor. Quietly, she also intimates that you should be careful where you surf and what you do online, because every event, swipe, and keystroke is now logged on company servers.
Back to Juggling Devices
But this is your personal device – you bought it for all the cool things it can do. Sure, the company now pays a stipend for service, but what about playing Angry Birds or spending time on Facebook, even after hours? Guess you’ll have to get another device to support your digital lifestyle and protect your privacy.
Before the introduction of enterprise mobility software, companies either prohibited accessing corporate assets from smartphones and tablets, or supplied “standard issue” handsets and mobile software to enable them. Because the devices didn’t support (or prohibited use of) private email, texting, social media, games, etc., most employees continued carrying a second personal mobile device to support their rapidly evolving digital lifestyles.
No one likes to carry two (or more) mobile devices – not men with pockets or women with purses, nor anyone with a briefcase. Carrying two or three phones is not a fashion statement.
The goal of enterprise mobility is one of convergence – fewer devices, not more of them. But, as described above, many mobility rollouts fail because they encourage employees to continue carrying separate personal and corporate devices.
A Better Path to Enterprise Mobility
It doesn’t have to be that way. Mobile workers and employers can have the best of both worlds. For employees, the freedom to continue to use the full functionality of their favorite phones and tablets, with privacy while doing so. For employers and IT staffers, ironclad security and separation of company data and apps from threats from open mobile platforms, rogue software, viruses – the range of malware that plagues the modern digital world. And greater productivity for everyone’s benefit – mobile workers doing their jobs in and out of the office using their preferred tools and applications.
Our launch this week, coinciding with Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, gives the mobile/wireless ecosystem a bridge across the personal/professional mobile divide. SecureIT Mobile Enterprise, our new software and services solution, builds on OK Labs’ ubiquitous and mature OKL4 Microvisor, the leading mobile virtualization platform. We’ve published a white paper explaining how it works and why it’s re-inventing enterprise mobility.
So give your pockets and purses a break! And use your smartphone or tablet to follow us on twitter.
Posted by Steve Subar on February 14 at 01:50 AM
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About Steve Subar:
Steve Subar, CEO and President of OK Labs, has been an honored leader in the technology industry for 20 plus years and has received several accolades for his work. Steve is an avid runner who can also be found communing with his surfboard in Bondi Beach, Australia; skiing the slopes of Beaver Creek, Colorado; or searching for the perfect Pinot Noir all over the world.