Category Archives: Mobile

Jan 3 2018

The Modern Workplace

A significant change is happening about how workplaces are managed and used in the future. Software vendors like Microsoft refer to this as The Modern Workplace.

For the past 20 years enterprises followed the paradigm of a strictly controlled workplace. Workplaces should stick to a company standard. Deviations to this standard were unwanted and considered to lead to higher management costs. The goal was to have a golden (single) image of the base installation and only accept small changes to settings and software. To achieve this goal, users were restricted to a minimum of rights without any self service capabilities.

This model worked well for years, but todays requirements on productivity and the increasing complexity of usecases must lead to rethink this approach. All major software and hardware vendors (Microsoft, Apple) seem to have understood these new challenges and created their own vision on how a modern workplace will look like in the future:

Enable the end user to perform certain tasks by himself, easily supported by an self service engine that drives these user initiated tasks in a controlled way. Starting at the deployment by providing an out of the box experience to the end user, continuing for software distribution via an AppStore including the ability to install software updates when it fits the user’s work schedule. With such tools, the end user can tailor his workplace to optimize his own productivity.

Support highly mobile usecases where workstations could easily be out of the company network for weeks. Control must not end at the company’s network perimeter but instead must handle devices which mainly live on the Internet as well as those in the internal network.

A closer look on the current market reveals that most vendors have solutions to support this new workplace concept:

Mobile Device Management Software is used for the basic management of the devices instead of heavy tools like ADS-GPOs and SCCM. Most MDM vendors support the traditional computing operating systems (Windows, macOS) nowadays as good as the mobile platforms and keep focusing on them.

Deployment methods which leverage the hardware vendor’s preload instead of reimaging the device are upcoming and supported by zero touch technologies like DEP (Apple) or Autopilot (Windows).

Internet Directories like AzureAD are more and more replacing traditional identity providers like ADS.

MDM systems are usually provided as a cloud service and accessible from the Internet or when installed on premise reachable from the Internet to provide services and control to Internet living devices.

The biggest obstacle for moving towards the modern workplace in a traditional enterprise is the cultural change that comes with it. While Startups have already adapted to the new paradigm, most users of traditional enterprises consider self service more as a burden than an opportunity. Not to mention the security department which likes strict control much better than loose, lightweight management.

However, as vendors move fast in this direction and are stopping support for some traditional methods (Apple will very likely discontinue imaging technologies with the next macOS version) and Millennials are demanding a certain degree of freedom for their productivity, also enterprises should consider the modern workplace at least as an option.

Apr 23 2014

How Dropbox revolutionized enterprise IT

Some of you might remember those early days of computer networking when coaxial cables were used to interconnect PCs and Novell Netware was the market leader for file sharing. Although new players appeared in this space with IBM LAN Server and Microsoft Windows NT, the basic concept of shared network drives did not change much.

The general concept is based on centralized file repositories. Management and especially access management is usually limited to administrative personnel and based on groups rather than on individual users. And, because of the centralized approach, users are required to be online to access files.

This was state of the art for almost 20 years.

As with anything that stays for a long time, requirements change and the centralized concept was unable to meet the new needs of the millennium generation. Mobile computing started to become more natural, the number and kinds of devices changed from static PCs to notebooks and nowadays tablets and mobile phones. Users are not only able to take administrative responsibilities, but they can even demand to manage their resources themselves.

Although some tried to enhance the existing software with all kinds of add-ons (offline folders) and workarounds to help support the new requirements, the outcome was not really satisfying.

Dropbox was and still is so successful because it fulfills those new needs!

The paradigm switched from a centralized file store to a distributed, replicated file repository with easy access regardless of whether the user is online, offline or using a mobile device like a tablet or mobile phone or even only a web browser. The user is able to share his owned files easily with other users or groups through a simple web interface.

But how does this affect enterprise IT?

These new user requirements are not limited to consumers. Actually, the need to have access to your important files and work on them in a geographically distributed team is a very common requirement of today’s enterprises. Dropbox has inspired a number of other products and services specifically targeting the enterprise market to appear in recent years. Not only do these programs support the new file sharing paradigm, but they also support core enterprise requirements for data security, privacy and control.

IBM Connections (and its software as a service companion IBM SmartCloud for Social Business) is a perfect example.

File services today are no longer based on shared network drives, but rather on distributed file repositories with easy access through web interfaces or replication clients and which enables the user to perform limited management task themselves. If the enterprise IT department does not fulfill these new user requirements, shadow IT based on Dropbox and similar technologies may continue to rise. Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Nov 11 2013

Why IBM should acquire Blackberry

After some weeks of negotiating with possible buyers, Blackberry (formally known as Research in Motion, RIM) decided that they won’t be for sale and stopped all acquisition talks. However, the various press articles about possible buying candidates, made me think about what it would mean for both companies if IBM would acquire Blackberry.

To my surprise, it would actually match very well.

Why this would be good for Blackberry:

Blackberry’s revenue is declining over the past years. Even the release of the new Blackberry OS 10 did not bring the expected turn around. Therefore, Blackberry was looking for a partner who would not only secure their future existence but also also add new distribution channels and opportunities for their assets.

IBM would provide these new distribution channels when bundling Blackberry hardware and services with IBM professional services on an enterprise level.

Why this would make sense for IBM:

One keypoint of IBM’s overall strategy is Mobile together with Cloud, Big Data / Analytics and Social Media. The Blackberry products – especially Blackberry OS 10 – could be an ideal platform for IBM’s Mobile First initative. Although Blackberry is not very popular in the consumer space and faces almost eroding market share there, it still maintains a rather strong share in the enterprise arena. And this does have a reason: Blackberry meets more enterprise requirements than any other mobile platform does.

Manageability and Control – it was always a core concept of Blackberry to enable an enterprise to keep control over its devices from a central management point.

Security – Blackberry can be considered the only truly secure mobile platform. iOS and Windows Phone are proprietary solutions where any enterprise depends on the vendor company, and open Android has frequent security voluntaries, Blackberry still maintains strong market creditability for its security concept and policies.

Container based concept to separate critical business data from private data.

Summary:

Buying Blackberry would give IBM a strong enterprise oriented mobile platform and would make IBM independent from other mobile vendors strategies and limitations. A solid solution with Blackberry technology and IBM software, services and distribution channels would certainly be a strong player and hard to beat. Unfortunately that is all not very likely to happen soon 🙂