Managing the Mobile Enterprise

“There's a huge opportunity here; enterprises are crying out for solutions, and operators have a bunch of competencies around mobile devices and services they can bring to bear here,” said Rob Dalgety, marketing director for mFormation, which helps operators manage devices on their own network and has an Enterprise Manager platform that operators — including Telefonica and Vodafone — use to help enterprises do the same. “The operator, however, really needs to ensure they have a best-in-class solution in order to compete. It's a much more complex sale than operators are used to, and they need to focus their organizations on meeting this key customer segment need.”

Enterprise mobile management needs start with the basics, such as enabling access and desktop synchronization of core e-mail/calendar applications to much more sophisticated requirements, such as the ability to remotely detect, configure and activate devices; manage software and applications; secure devices, including the ability to back up, restore, and lock and wipe lost devices; and more. Enterprises also want the ability to tie into corporate directories and IT management systems, managing mobile devices much the same way they manage other IT assets, such as laptops and desktops.

Such management capabilities have been slow to come in part because mobile phones historically have been managed in the enterprise as monthly expenses by finance or procurement departments — a situation that enterprise IT departments are looking to change as mobile devices become more about accessing corporate applications than accessing voicemail.

That trend is reflected in how some carriers are approaching this opportunity. For instance, Verizon Business currently offers a mobile telecom expense management service. But by the first quarter of next year it plans to offer a fuller device management solution — delivered as a global managed service — that it says will manage multiple devices across multiple carrier networks, including its competitors.

“We're evolving our platform to more of a complete managed mobility solution encompassing all things mobility: logistics, procurement, security, device management and application management, wrapping it all up with a nice package of professional services and customer support,” said Amanda Chesley, product marketing manager for Verizon Business' product marketing mobility solutions team. “We are aiming to help enterprises resolve the pain of managing devices and wireless policies across the globe and across carriers.”