Mobility faces three grand challenges: device size, energy requirements, and management needs. How these challenges are addressed will determine mobility's long-term value to your company.
I've been working in mobility for almost 30 years, having gotten my start as a member of the team that built the GRiD Systems Compass Computer Model 1101 back in 1981. It was obvious, even at that time, that computers would become essential to business and that the personal computer would be the strategy of choice. Making that personal computer mobile, while an enormous technical challenge, also seemed the clear direction to go.
The requirement for mobile IT has continued to grow, and rapidly, over the years since then, but I am somewhat sad to report that the technical challenges haven't gotten any easier despite the huge amount of experience we've gained in building the products and services required for practical, cost-effective solutions.
As is always true in high tech, IT buyers and users want faster/better/cheaper, and the industry has responded with a dizzying array of options and alternatives. Today's notebooks (and especially netbooks) offer great power and wireless convenience, but a key desire for many is in replacing, at least in some venues and applications, that great big notebook (it seems funny to say that now; the GRiD 1101 weighed in at 11 pounds!) with a handheld that's expected to be a computer, voice and data communicator, personal information appliance, camera, GPS system, and music player.
Sure, we can do that - but mobility, as I've learned over the years, is rooted in compromise. This has led today to what I like to call the three grand challenges of mobility:
Client girth: Should your handheld be, at heart, a tiny PC? Appealing though that may be, I don't think so. Yes, we can build in the processing power, communications, storage, and other elements needed to do just that, but the user interface is always going to be centered on a little tiny keyboard and little tiny display. These aren't conducive to productivity -- and that's OK, because the handheld is all about convenience, not replacing the PC.
I would argue that the best model for handheld mobile computing is, in fact, Web-based thin clients and cloud services " do the computing and keep the storage where it belongs, on the other side of the wireless link. Device cost declines in the bargain here -- a big plus, especially in enterprise settings where budgets are always tight. And security, integrity, and cost-effectiveness are also optimized. Sure, go ahead, run some personal-productivity apps locally, but the handheld replacing the PC? Except for a few special situations, not anytime soon.
Energy: I don't think we're likely to see any big innovation in battery technology in the next few years, and we may be with lithium-based technologies near the end of the road with respect to mobile power sources regardless. We can, though, utilize some great power-conservation technologies like inherently low-power chips and modules, power-saving wireless protocols, supercapacitors, and, again, keeping client girth to a minimum. Add-on and replacement batteries may need to be standard issue for real power (pun intended) users. But power will regardless remain the ultimate limitation for mobile users.
Mobile Device Management: Finally, this requirement needs a lot more attention from IT in every organization. The handset is the new edge of the enterprise network, and attention must be paid to integrity, security, acceptable use, configuration, and remediation when disaster strikes right before the big meeting. While I expect mobile device management to eventually be integrated into network operations suites, it's today a distinct capability, and available in products for the enterprise and also from a few carriers as a service. But, regardless of how it's provisioned, this is an essential element too often overlooked by enterprises both large and small today.
These aren't the only challenges facing mobile IT, to be sure. But I think these three alone -- deciding how much to do on the device itself, how to power that device, and how to manage it and the services it provisions -- will be at the forefront of IT decision-making for some time to come.
Craig Mathias is a Principal with Farpoint Group, a wireless and mobile advisory firm based in Ashland, MA. Craig is an internationally recognized expert on wireless communications and mobile computing technologies. He is a well-known industry analyst and frequent speaker at industry conferences and trade shows, and is a member of the Interop advisory board and is program chair for Mobile Business Expo.
