There’s little question that mobility has become a key feature of the technology landscape. What’s changing is that mobile users want access to more than just e-mail. Organizations seeking to maximize the productivity of an increasingly mobile workforce need to give road warriors access to enterprise applications through their handheld devices.
That’s easier said than done. Given the wide variety of handhelds, with a mix of features, operating systems and network technologies, organizations are struggling to find ways to incorporate mobile devices into their data center strategies. On top of that, mobile technologies are constantly changing, creating a moving target.
Undaunted, FusionStorm’s Enterprise Software Group is blazing a new trail into the mobile arena. FusionStorm sees mobility as the next frontier of application development, and is actively pursuing mobility projects both internally and for customers.
“There’s no question the demand is there — it’s just a matter of working with customers to determine the best strategy for developing and rolling out mobile solutions,” said Steve Soper, director of FusionStorm’s Enterprise Software Group. “What we’re doing is starting the conversation, working on internal projects and talking to customers about the potential for application development on the iPhone and other mobile devices. What role will the iPhone play in their organizations? What sorts of applications are they going to build — something they can push out to their customers to establish brand recognition or something that’s going to add value internally for their end-users? These questions need to be answered, and FusionStorm is uniquely positioned to help customers see both the business value and the impact of these solutions.”
Apps for Everything?
Soper sees FusionStorm’s role as bridging the gap between the consumer-oriented iPhone store and the corporate IT environment. A key element of this strategy involves educating customers as to the potential benefits iPhone applications can bring to their organizations.
“Our focus right now is on the iPhone, primarily because of its unique application delivery ecosystem,” said Soper. “People have been writing applications that extend to mobile devices for many years, and when you get right down to it the iPhone is just another mobile device. There’s nothing really that groundbreaking about it. What Apple has brought to the table is the framework for delivering applications to end-users. They’ve created a nice development platform and have built in a lot of features. But I think what has made it really popular is that they’ve provided the mechanism to find, review, download and buy applications through very familiar sets of tools."
“However, if you look at the iPhone applications that are out there, you’ll find a lot of cool stuff but it’s not business-related. It’s one thing for a developer to build these applications for fun, and quite another for corporate America to see the potential and develop the business case. That’s why you don’t see a lot of companies leveraging iPhone applications yet.”
User Demand
Although mobile application development is still a nascent market, end-users are pressing for solutions that will allow them to use handheld devices as full-on computing platforms rather than mere communication tools. A recent survey by Open Kernel Labs found that corporate end-users and IT professionals believe growth in mobile access to enterprise applications will outpace the growth of mobile e-mail over the next two years. In addition, 87 percent said it is “critical” that mobile workers have access to corporate desktop applications, servers and databases from their mobile phones.
In fact, there is little difference between the desired functionality of laptops and of mobile phones among corporate users. Seventy percent of respondents say it’s important to have access to corporate applications from a laptop, while 67 percent report they want the same availability on their mobile handset. Forty-five percent of corporate end-users prefer a desktop-like interface and 30 percent want a Web-based mobile enterprise application delivery interface.
Corporate end-users do not believe they have an effective desktop-like solution. Thirty-eight percent of those surveyed describe their IT department as behind the times in providing remote access of desktop applications, documents, databases and other corporate data. Soper believes organizations need a trusted partner to help guide them into this new territory.
“It’s true that mobile application delivery poses new challenges. However, handheld devices are easily capable of functioning as mobile enterprise application endpoints. The iPhone, to me, is just another delivery mechanism,” Soper said. “Now that end-users have seen what the iPhone can do, they are looking for ways to use the iPhone interface to gain access to their enterprise applications and corporate desktops. We can help customers become more productive and competitive by delivering applications and data to these devices.”