By Mark Shaw
This year the technology trending for businesses
of all size boils down to two different
trends: touch and mobile, or mobile and
touch. Both will play a big part in how we are
seeing things shift in the business market for
technology.
While this is all good and exciting, we have
to look at some pitfalls as well. Otherwise we
are not providing a full picture.
These mobile devices are already in your business, even if you have not purchased and authorized them and that battle too is brewing.
So, what is a business to do? How do you deal with all these devices that are already in your network and being used by your employees to be more productive? The trend for 2013 will be mobile, be it tablets or smartphones, your workforce will be mobile and will demand you have the back end network to support it. Employees expect to walk in new to a job and be able to get their e-mail, contacts and even company applications right on their own mobile devices. Companies have to adapt, and in this year, you will see many organizations playing catch-up; figuring how best to leverage this technology that is already in place.
This, I predict, will also be the year these devices start a legal battle. Let`s take this scenario for example. You hire an employee, they come with their own smart device. They connect this device to the company network and have access to all their e-mails, company contacts, and client files for the business. Now this employee leaves the organization, their smart device heads out the door with them. What rights do you the business have at this point to protect your intellectual property? Most of the enterprises we work with have the ability to remotely manage these devices, up to and including being able to wipe all the information off them.
This now ex-employee has an untold amount of company data in any number of formats. What can you do as an employer? Can you take ownership of the device? Can you simply wipe the entire device ensuring all of your private information stays private? If you do and they have their own private information on the device as well, are you accountable and responsible for their family phones, priceless videos and any purchased content they may not be able to get again? This is where the BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device, can go bad quickly.
The lines of business-owned and employeeowned are starting to blur and this trend will continue as employees prefer their MacBook air to the clunky company provided 7-lb notebook, and with the cloud enabling the work anywhere on any platform, this is no longer a technical issue. As this continues, it is fair to say employers should start to draw lines, set expectations, and discuss with legal the best way to handle this. Only by setting clear policies and defining, or in some cases banning these devices, will a company be able to steer clear of an information leak or worse–a lawsuit. Our counterparts in India have about half of the Indian companies banning any personal device at work. It is something to consider.
Going hand-in-hand with mobile is touch. This touch phenomenon is not new. Enterprises have been using touch screens in production environments for years. These screens were used to control large machines in environments where keyboards and mice just would not survive. Times have changed and now everyone is in to the touch side of things.
From mobile devices, tablets, and now all-inone PCs with touch screens, the word for 2013 is “touch enable.” Samsung just announced its new line of touch screen monitors for business and consumers. Windows 8, love it or hate it, is made for touch first and keyboards and mice second. The interface was designed for tablets and then made to work with PC`s as well. This is an entire paradigm shift in thinking when the desktop OS is considered secondary to mobile. We have something here to pay attention to. Windows 8, iOS, and Android are all platforms where touch is central to everything these devices do. So how can businesses leverage this and what should we expect to see? I think it is safe to say that business applications on a whole are a bit more old school than, let’s say, the latest 3D first person shooter. We expect business applications to just work, and to work well and with as few bugs as possible. We also expect that most of these apps are just as happy on a no longer supported Windows XP as they are on the business standard of Windows 7. We expect that this year will be the year that business applications pay attention to touch and how it will impact the interface between the user and the application.
Touch screens have forced a change in the way you work with your iPad or smartphone. Business applications are behind this curve and this year they will be playing catchup. The trend to watch is business applications becoming part of “app stores,” be it the Apple app store, Android marketplace or Windows store. These applications will undergo a transformation from purchasing a box from the store, or downloading the software from their website, to becoming, as I call it, “appified”.
This transition to app stores means that no longer will there be a process to get your new business application installed, but more streamlined like we are all now accustomed to with our touch devices.
The final transition will be having these apps make the leap from mouse and keyboard dependent to touch enabled. Don`t get me wrong, this will be a messy process with a lot of false starts. We have already witnessed some amazing poor applications in the verticals we work in that are claiming “tablet ready” which are anything but.
While we poke fun of these poor designs, we also understand the fundamental transformation which is occurring. Keyboards and mice, while they will remain a staple for years to come, are finally having some real competition. These touch-enabled applications will continue to grow and mature as the mobile platforms demand better interfaces and the touch-enabled operating systems of tomorrow support them. This is not just a trend for consumers, it’s coming to businesses everywhere and I firmly believe this is the year that some of these business-level applications get it right.
Mobile and touch are the two trends to watch for this year. They have deeper implications then even I fully understand, but it is coming. The cloud is enabling this to be even easier as we deliver applications across multiple platforms and devices with ease. Think of how easy it is to share a kindle book, regardless of device. It’s there, iPad, iPhone, Android device, and of course the Kindle. Now picture that for all your mission-critical business apps. Cloud based delivery, on any mobile device, and completely touch enabled. Touch and mobile, us techies welcome you, and trust me, businesses will too.