Popular new devices mean IT pros must make forward-thinking decisions - Industry Trend or Event

Based on past history, IT had better prepare for hand-helds and wireless devices.

While 2000 was not a good year for PC sales in the U.S., the same cannot be said for purchases of personal digital assistants (PDAs), interactive pagers, Web-enabled cellular phones and PocketPC devices. All of these devices are now becoming mainstream. Their growing computing power puts them in the hands of people who want to use them to do their work more efficiently. IT departments are predictably concerned--and many are woefully unprepared for the task ahead.

As history indicates, when any type of personal computing device becomes part of the mainstream, enterprises will eventually be forced to support them--but often not until their presence has created havoc within the organization.

This situation has seen two parallels in recent IT history. In the early 1980s, PCs began popping up on corporate desktops, often brought in through the back door. IT departments at first stubbornly refused to support these rogue machines. By the time IT realized PCs were part of the mainstream data flow, they were out of control in many companies.

The need to regain control and manage desktop PCs gave birth to the system management industry--now a $20 billion annual business. Systems management gave IT departments the ability to standardize configurations, deploy software and content, provide virus protection, enable security, and backup and restore key data--all from a central location.

In the 1990s, as portable laptop computers began to appear, many IT departments made the same mistake. Mobile sales forces, remote office workers and other corporate computer users voted with their tote bags and brought in laptop PCs by the millions. Of course, IT departments were proved wrong again--laptop users demanded access to corporate data, and they got it. As a result, many organizations are just now starting to come to grips with managing their fleets of laptops.

HAND-HELDS POSE MORE PROBLEMS

What IT departments have learned about managing laptops is sobering. Laptop PCs are not just like other computers, and many of the existing systems management tools that served connected networks well are ineffective in an environment characterized by intermittent connectivity and thin bandwidth. Connections are unpredictable, cannot be scheduled and are often broken in the middle of a transmission. Throughput speeds are slow compared to corporate local area networks, making file transfer an ordeal.

The problems IT departments face with gaining control of hand-held and wireless devices make the challenges of managing laptops seem simple. Rather than a single dominant operating system, they may be forced to support PalmOS, PocketPC, Symbian, RIM and other platforms--all within the same enterprise. Then add the difficulties that the wireless world brings.

Start with the restricted bandwidth that will be a way of life until so-called 2.5G and 3G networks are predominant, which is likely years away. Until then, most 2G networks will be hard-pressed to produce speeds much greater than 10,000 bps, which makes your old 56K modem look like a screamer. Then add in the alphabet soup of bearers and protocols that must be supported, including GSM, CDPD, CDMA, TDMA, Mobitex and others. When you combine the different operating system platforms and corresponding devices, with the different connection types, you are left with a complex matrix of options to support.

Despite claims to the contrary, handheld and wireless devices must and will be supported because they are going to provide mission-critical applications. There is hardly an investment banker in New York, for example, who would not consider his RIM Blackberry application, which gives him always-on e-mail access, to be crucial. Or what about the police departments and highway patrols across the country who are now using PocketPC devices to collect mandated information on every traffic stop to help identify and eliminate racial profiling?

THE ENTERPRISE BENEFITS

Beyond the historical imperative of managing mobile and wireless devices, including hand-helds, there are three key constituencies that will all benefit if an organization has the foresight to invest in mobile device management.

* End users of mobile devices. Rarely are mobile and field workers the most technically sophisticated; they are usually hired for other talents. Mobile device management lets them focus on doing what they do best: producing revenue and satisfied customers.

* IT departments. Mobile device management can alleviate a number of key concerns about virus protection, security, control and tracking of devices. IT departments can begin treating mobile devices as key corporate assets, even if their mobile device management tool is different from their existing desktop management tools.

* Executive management. Mobile device management usually quickly produces a substantial return on investment. According to industry analysts, total cost of ownership of mobile devices is usually many times higher than the price of the device itself.

IT departments that are serious about providing management of mobile and wireless devices should look for a vendor that can provide these four key elements:

* Comprehensive mobile experience. The mobile world is different, and experience in building products that work in an environment of intermittent connectivity and thin bandwidth is crucial. Being experienced in systems management is no guarantee of success in mobile device management.

* Comprehensive device support. There is probably not going to be one dominant or winning platform in the hand-held wireless world, so enterprises must be able to support all types of mobile devices from Win32 laptops to PocketPCs, PalmOS, RIM, Symbian, Java and others.

* Comprehensive connection alternatives. Mobile devices will connect through a variety of means--wireless and wireline--direct to a server or via a companion PC, at a variety of speeds and reliability, ranging from virtual private networks to wireless networks, so the solution must be able to support virtually any possible connection scenario.

* Comprehensive management functionality. The ultimate goal is to provide the widest range of capabilities, including: software deployment, content distribution, configuration management, asset tracking, virus protection, backup and restore, and security enhancement. A vendor that can provide all of these features, combined with the elements described above, is probably one that is suited best to help manage your mobile business.

Rosen is senior vice president of business alliances at XcelleNet Inc., Alpharetta, GA.

www.xcellenet.com

Circle 265 for more information from XcelleNet

COPYRIGHT 2001 Nelson Publishing
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group