Whtppr 0312 Mobility Redux Atkinson

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The Mobility Revolution Redux:

Continued Change and Challenge

by

Roy Atkinson

Senior Writer/Analyst, HDI
http://www.techweb.com/


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An HDI White Paper I March 2012

The Mobility Revolution Redux: Continued Change and Challenge

800.248.5667 I www.ThinkHDI.com I 2012 United Business Media LLC. All rights reserved.

Contents

Executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

The Mobility Revolution: Year in Review. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Rapid Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Security Concerns and Access to Internal Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

The State of Mobile Device Support. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

About HDI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
http://www.thinkhdi.com/http://www.techweb.com/http://www.thinkhdi.com/


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Executive Summary

In February 2011, HDI published a white paper on The Mobility Revolution and ItsConsequences or Support. Since thenand especially at the end o 2011 and thebeginning o 2012this revolution has gained momentum. It is no longer necessary topredict mobile, always-on, always-connected styles o work. They are here, and likelyhere to stay.

In an eort to track the progress o the ongoing mobilerevolution, HDI conducted a new survey based closely onthe 2010 Research Corner on the same topic. In this way,we were able to compare year-to-year results and identiytrends. The new survey was in the eld at the very endo 2011, and the results were published in January 2012,

based on responses rom 286 support centers.

The purpose o this paper is to look back over the past year, extract meaningul inorma-tion, and take a look at what is and is not being done in the world o mobile support.

This paper will cover the ollowing areas:

An update on the past year o the mobility revolution;

Rapid change;

Security; and

The state o mobile device support.

A word about BYOD

Where does the line between mobile device support and policy end and the larger bringyour own device (BYOD) question begin? In uture years, there may not be any divisionbetween the two, since its already beginning to blur. Right now, though, mobile devicesupport is both running ahead o and driving more inclusive BYOD policies, althoughgathering accurate and meaningul numbers about the breadth o BYODs current state isdicult at best. The state o the larger BYOD questionand its relative, the consumer-ization o ITis too large to tackle in this paper, but will be covered separately in utureHDI research and publications.

During the latter part o 2011 and into 2012, many online sources (blogs and the socialmedia world) seemed to take it or granted that the majority o companies have bringyour own device (BYOD) policies in place, and that most workers are buying and usingtheir own computers, tablets, and smartphones or work.1 This is demonstrably not thecase (yet), according to our research and that o others. This is not to say that people

1 See, or example, Galen Grumans blog at Smart User. The results o several surveys ail to support his opening

statements. Early analysis o HDIs 2012 research on BYOD indicates that more than hal o respondent companies are

currently not considering BYOD policies or smartphones, laptops, or tablets.

In every support environment, rom higher education

to healthcare to manuacturing, mobility can be a

beneft to both productivity and proftability; but it

can also be a treadmill o keeping up with rapidly

changing platorms, standards, and applications.

The Mobility Revolution and Its Consequences for Support
http://www.thinkhdi.com/http://www.infoworld.com/t/byod/lost-in-byods-uncharted-legal-waters-180793http://www.infoworld.com/t/byod/lost-in-byods-uncharted-legal-waters-180793http://www.techweb.com/http://www.thinkhdi.com/


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are not bringing personal devices to work and using them in unsupported ways. Howev-er, most organizations do not yet have ormal policies in place to allow or encourage

employees to use devices they have personally purchased as a matter o course or theirwork.

Related topics

There are questions related to the use o mobile devices or accessing organizationalresources that go beyond the support organization itsel, but which may and should beconsidered by HR and other senior management. These questions include, but are notlimited to:

Impact on compensation o hourly sta or access to email and calendar duringo hours;

Impact on employee vacation time; and

Possible tax implications o stipends, allowances, or other methods o compen-sation or devices and data plans.

These questions should be born in mind by management, but do not bear directly on thequestions o mobile support considered here.

Introduction

Here are some astounding statistics about the mobile industry at the beginning o 2012:2

There are now 5.9 billion active mobile phone subscriptions worldwide (repre-

senting 4 billion unique users), compared with 1.1 billion landlines. Thesesubscriptions represent 4.8 billion mobile handsets.

Nineteen percent o the global installed base is smartphones

At 1.2 billion, the smartphone installed base approaches the total installed basefor all types of personal computers (1.3 billion personal computers, includingdesktops, laptops, netbooks, and tablet PCs like the Apple iPad)

To put this another way, not using a smartphone is getting to be about as anachronisticas using a pen and paper or business recordkeeping. People lead complex lives, andthe line between personal time and work time is becoming more and more blurred.Children have calendars or school and extracurricular activities. Parents need to coordi-

nate errands, travel, meals, and oten caregiver duties or their own parentsall inaddition to increasingly demanding work schedules. The need or real-time communi-cation o both business and personal inormation is increasing, and voice calling is notalwaysor perhaps even otenthe best way to communicate. Text (SMS) messages,tweets, Facebook posts, and emails are oten the preerred and most ecient ways to getinormation rom point A to point B, or to points B to Z.

2 Tomi T. AhonensAlmanac 2012
http://www.thinkhdi.com/http://www.tomiahonen.com/ebook/almanac.htmlhttp://www.tomiahonen.com/ebook/almanac.htmlhttp://www.techweb.com/http://www.thinkhdi.com/


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The demand on organizations to expand support or mobile devices has intensiedduring the past year, especially with regard to personal devices (i.e., those o the employ-

ees own choosing). This paper explores the consequences o those demands, and howsupport centers are attempting to meet them.

The Mobility Revolution: Year in Review

Many o the trends articulated in our previous mobility paper have continued and grown.Mobile device sales have soared, and more people than ever are using, or asking to use,their mobile devices or work purposes. Many o these devices are personally ownednot selected and purchased by the companyand that complicates the matter in manyways. Fewer organizations say that they are not supporting mobile devices (rom eightpercent in our 2010 research to ve percent in late 2011). The iPad has become one

o the most popular devices, and is now given at least some support by about three-quarters o support centers that responded to our survey,3 challenging BlackBerry asthe most supported device. Mobile device management (MDM) tools have been imple-mented in over one-third o respondent support centers, and almost one-quarter osupport centers have changed their stang structures somewhat to adapt to the surgein mobile devices. These are all rapid, big changes in the way support organizations aredoing business with regard to mobile devices.

The prolieration and diversication o the mobile marketplace has complicated manyorganizations attempts to create mobile device support plans that are not so conusingand time consuming that they become impractical. We all see this in the advertisingo countless mobile devices, whether they are running Android, iOS, BlackBerry, or

Windows Phone systems. Mobile service providers all seem to say that they are the bestand the astest and have the most network coverage. New devices are introduced regular-ly, each having some eatures that a subset o customers wants, and support centersnd themselves scrambling to learn enough to provide even rudimentary support. Tomake matters worse, hundreds o thousands o apps are available through the AndroidMarketplace and Apples huge App Store, which posted its 25 billionth download earlierthis month. What do these apps do? How will they interact with corporate resources,i at all? How can support centers even begin to vet these apps and/or their seeminglyincessant updates?

Changes in the mobile business itsel have also created complications. A year ago, ewcould have predicted the course o events at Research in Motion,4 the marriage o Nokia to

Windows Phone,5 the purchase o Motorola Mobility by Google,6 or the wide popularityo Apples voice-driven iPhone assistant, Siri. Tablets seem to have tapped an unoreseenmarket somewhere in between smartphones and laptops, as well. Tablet sales grew an

3 Jenny Rains, Supporting Mobile Devices in 2011, HDI Research Corner (January 2012)4 Elizabeth Woyke, RIM CEOs Balsillie and Lazaridis Step Down as COO Takes Top Post, Forbes.com(January 22,

2012).5 Kevin J. OBrien, One Year Later, Nokia and Microsoft Deliver, The New York Times(February 27, 2012).6 Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility, press release dated August 15, 2011.
http://www.thinkhdi.com/http://www.thinkhdi.com/~/media/HDICorp/Files/Research-Corner/RC_MobileDevices_Jan_2012.pdfhttp://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabethwoyke/2012/01/22/rim-ceos-to-step-down-as-coo-takes-top-post/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/technology/one-year-later-nokia-and-microsoft-start-to-deliver.html?_r=2http://investor.google.com/releases/2011/0815.htmlhttp://investor.google.com/releases/2011/0815.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/technology/one-year-later-nokia-and-microsoft-start-to-deliver.html?_r=2http://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabethwoyke/2012/01/22/rim-ceos-to-step-down-as-coo-takes-top-post/http://www.thinkhdi.com/~/media/HDICorp/Files/Research-Corner/RC_MobileDevices_Jan_2012.pdfhttp://www.techweb.com/http://www.thinkhdi.com/


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astounding260 percent in 2011.7 These market-driven changes and others have donenothing to simpliy the choices acing organizations and their support centers.

Rapid Change

The treadmill o device revisions, model expansions, and app updates has continued toaccelerate. Market conditions continue to fuctuate, and the decline o BlackBerry and theincrease in Android and Apple device penetration into the enterprise continues. Despitethis rapid change, support or connection rom mobile devices to internal resources,which include email and calendar, is up across the board or both company-owned andpersonal devices, and device support continues to cross brands and platorms. Last year,we reported that about one-third o the respondents said they did not allow connectionsrom personal devices; those numbers ell during 2011. In the case o personal iPhones,

or example, last year 34 percent o organizations said they did not allow connections,while this year that number had dropped to 19 percent. Similarly, 31 percent said lastyear that they were not allowing iPads to connect, while this year the number hadagain dropped to 19 percent. Personal Android devices also gained some ground. Thepercentage o organizationsprohibiting Android devices rom connecting dropped rom38 percent last year to 26 percent in our latest research. At the same time, the percentageo organizations allowing personal Android devices to connect or anyone who has onerose rom 31 percent to 41 percent.

Still struggling to keep up

Last year, we reported that just about hal o respondent support centers were struggling

to keep up with the pace o change in the mobile device world, and that 41 percentclaimed to be keeping up. This years survey reveals that 52 percent are struggling tokeep up and 40 percent say they are keeping up with the pace ochange. This indicates that the struggle to keep up has intensied, atleast somewhat. There seems, however, to be no let up in organiza-tions determination to provide support. The percentage o respon-dent organizations that say they are not supporting mobile devicesdropped rom eight to ve percent since last year. Now only a verysmall portion (3%) o our survey respondents report that they areactually keeping up with the rapid pace o change.

In The Mobility Revolution, we cited a November 2010 Technology Review Business

Impact report8 that did predict a change in the brands and types o devices that wouldbe coming into the enterprise in 2011 and 2012. Although that publication reportedthat 57 percent o IT decision makers preerred BlackBerry in 2010, it also predicted

7 Greg Quick, Friday Grab Bag: Tablet Sales Grew 260% in 2011, mobile sports report(January 27,

2012).8 Mark Lowenstein, The Bring Your Own Device Policy, Technology Review Business Impact: The Mobile Enter-

prise1.2 (November 3, 2010).

Mobile devices are being released and

embraced by customers aster than

organizations can create policies around them

and support teams can learn about them

Jenny Rains, Senior Research Analyst, HD
http://www.thinkhdi.com/http://www.mobilesportsreport.com/2012/01/friday-grab-bag-tablet-sales-grow-260-in-2011/http://www.technologyreview.com/business/26634/http://www.technologyreview.com/business/26634/http://www.mobilesportsreport.com/2012/01/friday-grab-bag-tablet-sales-grow-260-in-2011/http://www.techweb.com/http://www.thinkhdi.com/


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that in 2012, BlackBerry would have only 34 percent o the market, while iPhone wouldincrease rom 20 percent to 34 percent, Android phones rom nine percent to 28 percent.

As we now know, both the Apple and Android markets have dramatically increased inboth overall popularity and enterprise penetration.9

Security Concerns and Access to Internal Resources

There are still many open questions regarding mobile device security. Mobile malwareis on the rise. Recent events have revealed highly insecure aspects o some embeddedsmartphone sotware and some mobile apps. Employee behavior, especially as it relatesto the online storage and sharing o proprietary business documents, is also a seriousconcern.

The reports o Carrier IQ embedded sotware10 and the unauthorized uploading andstorage o address book contacts11 that suraced in late 2011 and early 2012 placednew emphasis to the security concerns o many organizations, and may have increasedtheir reluctance to oer broad BYOD access to organizational resourcesand data, in spite o strong indications that such policies produce anincrease in productivity.12 But hidden applications and bad app behaviorare not the only cause or concern. The cloud storage and sharing utilityDropbox now has over 45 million users.13 The Dropbox app or mobiledevicesand other storage and sharing services such as Evernote,Huddle, Google Docs, and Box.commake online le storage andsharing extremely easy and accessible. Is it then likely that corporate documents andspreadsheets are being viewed on mobile devices and stored in third-party sites? In a

word, yes. It is important to remember that even though these sites may be secure inthat they use a secure protocol (HTTPS) and require authentication, unless the organiza-tion has complete access control, organizational data will be stored and possibly sharedusing methods and utilities o which the organization has no knowledge, and overwhich it has no control. Mobile devices serve as the enabling technology. Even i there isa policy (and an agreement with end users) that a company or institution will wipe adevicewhether personal or company-ownedthere is no guarantee that critical dataand/or intellectual property that might have been transmitted to the phone via emailattachments have been deleted. Those documents may very well still exist in one ormore online storage sites. Organizations continue to be very concerned about substan-tial data leakage through the use o mobile devices.

9 Zach Epstein, IDC: Smartphone sales hit all-time high in Q4 led by Apple, Samsung, BGR(February 6,

2012).10 Jaikumar Vijayan, FAQ: Behind the Carrier IQ rootkit controversy, Computerworld(December 1, 2011).11 Nicole Perlroth and Nick Bilton, Apps helping themselves to address books, The Bulletin(March 12,

2012).12 Larry Dignan, Rachel King, and Andrew Nusca, Bring-your-own-device becoming accepted business practice

(survey), Between the Lines(November 21, 2011).13 Dropbox Now Open for Business, press release dated October 27, 2011.

Total lockdown is rarely an option and is

almost never a good idea.

Monica Basso, Gartner
http://www.thinkhdi.com/http://www.bgr.com/2012/02/06/idc-smartphone-sales-hit-all-time-high-in-q4-led-by-apple-samsung/http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9222332/FAQ_Behind_the_Carrier_IQ_rootkit_controversy_http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120216/NEWS0107/202160332/0/NEWS01http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/bring-your-own-device-becoming-accepted-business-practice-survey/63811http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/bring-your-own-device-becoming-accepted-business-practice-survey/63811http://www.dropbox.com/press/20111027http://www.dropbox.com/press/20111027http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/bring-your-own-device-becoming-accepted-business-practice-survey/63811http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/bring-your-own-device-becoming-accepted-business-practice-survey/63811http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120216/NEWS0107/202160332/0/NEWS01http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9222332/FAQ_Behind_the_Carrier_IQ_rootkit_controversy_http://www.bgr.com/2012/02/06/idc-smartphone-sales-hit-all-time-high-in-q4-led-by-apple-samsung/http://www.techweb.com/http://www.thinkhdi.com/


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Malware attacks on mobile devices have also increased. As stated on MITs TechnologyReview site, Lookout, a mobile security rm, says that our percent o Android users

were likely to encounter malware over the course o the yearup rom one percent ousers a year ago, though part o the increase may be a unction o improved detection.14Fortunately, the marketplace has continued to respond with innovative solutions,ranging rom enhanced MDM to virtualization on the mobile device, allowing a separa-tion between corporate and personal apps, contacts, and data on the phone.

A recent summary o Focus.com answers on the topic o mobile device security provid-ed some suggestions or best practice, including:15

Understand the compliance issues related to your business;

Limit network access;

Properly identiy all devices; Mandate user authentication (PIN or passcode on the device); and

Invest in mobile device management sotware.

In spite o these security concerns, more organizations are allowing access to internalresources, including, but not necessarily limited to, email and calendar. Our researchcompares access to resources aorded to company-owned and personal devices. Yearover year, there has been signicant change, and more o it is happening with respect topersonal devices. This can be taken as an indicator o the trend toward mobile BYOD.

The State of Mobile Device Support

Just under hal the support centers in this years survey report that ormal mobile devicesupport policies are in development. It is noteworthy that the percentage reporting

well-dened policies has dropped since last year. This is disconcerting because, as theResearch Corner report on mobility says, Deeper analysis o the survey data validatesand reinorces the importance o well-dened policies. In both 2010 and 2011, thoseorganizations with well dened policies were more likely to eel like they are keeping upwith the pace o emerging technologies.16

Support or company-owned devices still exceeds that o personal devices by large(though shrinking) margins. BlackBerry still leads the way, with 72 percent o respondentorganizations supporting company-owned BlackBerry devices with access to internal

resources, compared to runners-up iPhone and iPad (both 52%), Android devices (38%),and Windows Phone (32%). In all cases, the number o support centers not supportingcompany-owned devices or access to internal resources is less than 20 percent, and ormost device platorms, less than ten percent.

14 David Talbot, Attacks on Android Devices Intensify, MIT Technology Review(February 9, 2012).15 Amy Babinchak, Martyn Davies, Bob Egan, Rasib Hassan Khan, Josh Lipton, and Ken Wineberg, Best Practices or

Managing Security on Mobile Devices, Focus.com.16 Jenny Rains, Supporting Mobile Devices in 2011, HDI Research Corner (January 2012).
http://www.thinkhdi.com/http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/39677/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-02-10http://www.thinkhdi.com/topics/research/research-corner.aspxhttp://www.thinkhdi.com/topics/research/research-corner.aspxhttp://www.technologyreview.com/communications/39677/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-02-10http://www.techweb.com/http://www.thinkhdi.com/


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A small percent reports that they support resource access or only some customers (e.g.,executives), but the only case where there is a large dierential is with iPads.


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Personal device support or resource access increased noticeably rom year to year.Many companies allow use o personal devices solely or email and calendar. Others are

providing access through secure gateways to virtualized inrastructures. Still others arebuilding mobile rst websites and venturing into the development o apps.

Last years paper identied the state o support as developing, and this years researchconrms that development has proceeded rapidly in every area except policy. A strongindicator o the move to open up the organization to multiple mobile platorms is theincrease in implementation o mobile device management (MDM) systems. More thanone-third o the respondents to this years mobile device Research Corner survey reportthat they have implemented MDM. Perhaps even more telling, however, is the ndingthat almost a quarter say they have made changes to stang, either dedicating somesta to mobile device support or outsourcing some or all o that work. Both the MDMimplementation and the sta changes are indicators o how great the pressure is to getmobile devices integrated into organizations.

Many businesses and institutions (20% o our respondents) have expanded and acceler-ated their plans or virtualization, with the intent o providing access to virtual desktopsand virtualized applications to mobile devices, especially tablets.

Virtualization has many levels and approaches, and, depending on the organization andits inrastructure, not all o them are well suited or supporting mobility. Although many

organizations have hurried to provide virtual desktop inrastructure (VDI) in the hopethat end users would be able to simply connect rom mobile devices to a virtual Windowsdesktop congured and controlled by IT, in some cases this has not proven to meet theneeds o the end users. A physician who wants tablet access to medical records so thatupdates and changes can be made at the bedside may nd that logging into a virtualdesktop (depending on network bandwidth and inrastructure) can take minutes rather


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than seconds.17 In addition, trying to navigate in a Windows environmentrom an iPad may be dicult. In some cases, however, applications can

be delivered well and quickly to the tablet without the intervening virtualmachine. There are individual organizational goals and capabilities thatneed to drive the technology choices, rather than having the choice otechnology driving the goals.

Thinking that desktop virtualization can solve all the potential riddlesassociated with the move to mobility is a kind o tunnel vision. Providingsecure access to a virtual desktop may be all that some organizations needto do, while in other cases the money spent on virtualizing desktops maybe an unnecessary expense. Mobile apps or mobile-enabled websites mayprove to be a better solution.

How the technology marketplace is helping

To meet the needs o mobile users, providers o sotware aimed squarelyat this market have grown and diversied. In addition to antivirus andantimalware applications, some companies have devised ways to virtualizea corporate personality on the mobile device itsel, basically creating a

wall between the personal apps and contacts and those used ociallyby the enterprise. This type o technology has some advantages, namely:

The personal personality o the phone or tablet never overlapswith the corporate side, so that an end users desire to use socialmedia, camera, or other applications is met without imposing ar-ticial obstacles;

In the event that a mobile device is lost or stolen, no proprietarydata rom the company or institution resides on the device itsel;and

The corporate personality can be wiped rom the device withoutaecting the personal data, providing a clean process or separa-tion (oboarding).

The best o breed o this technology will avoid degrading perormance asmuch as possible. I perormance o the mobile device is severely degraded,end users will either avoid using their smartphonesand lose produc-

tivityor will look or ways around the security restrictions, taking themobile support question back to square one.

17 One healthcare institution we spoke with clocked the connection and login time, and, in their case, it took up to

six minutes to log into an application rom an iPad through a virtual desktop. This was unacceptable to their physi-

cians.

In determining the type and extent o support

your organization will provide or mobile

devices, answer these general questions:

Does the organization currently possess

the mobility management and security

tools necessary to provide the level

o support to which the company has

committed, through policies, procedures,

compliance requirements, and service

level agreements?

Does the support center have the

appropriate level o access to those tools,

and/or a clear escalation path or resolving

incidents and requests?

Is inormation about mobile devices

at whichever levels o support are

appropriateincluded in the knowledge

management system?

Are support analysts being appropriately

trained to assist and to capture new

knowledge?

Are end users/customers aware o

the support centers ability to assist

them, the policies that exist, and their

responsibilities to the organization?

Are there consequences or violatingorganizational policies that clearly apply

to personal mobile devices? (Does your

acceptable use policy make it clear that

personal devices connected to corporate

network assets are subject to the same

use policies as company-owned devices,

or state what the dierences are? Do end

users/customers know the consequences

o sending confdential data across

insecure connections?)

The Mobility Revolution and Its

Consequences or Support


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Because o the wide array o products now available or the mobile enterprise, organiza-tions need to think strategically (above and beyond the budget) about:

How their employees use (or want to use) their mobile devices;

What access employees need:

Email and calendar only,

Enterprise applications through secure gateways,

Enterprise applications optimized or mobility, and

Proprietary corporate mobile apps; and

What expectations the organization has or savings or eciency improvements.

Summary

The trends we saw last year are continuing to accelerate, putting increasing pressure onthe support center to accommodate mobile device support or nd ways to absorb theextra work. Markets shit, devices evolve, and support either transorms, outsources, ordedicates sta to the tasks required to provide mobile device support. Nearly everyoneisor eels as i they arerunning behind and struggling. Policies that appeared welldeveloped last year may not appear to be that way now. Although there is some consen-sus around what best practices are with regard to mobile devices, the sheer speed andpressure o the move to mobility are making policies dicult to write and enorce.

Last years paper suggested three approaches to mobile support:

Theexclusionapproach: Dened as the organization limiting support to de-ned devices, or to no mobile devices. This approach, given the increases insupported platorms and devices across the board, is shrinking.

Thelimited-supportapproach: This approach appears to have blurred overthe last year, opening up the organization to more mobile devices and tendingmore toward BYOD.

TheBYODapproach: With regard only to mobile devices, and without gettinginto the larger questions o laptops or other equipment, this approach mostcertainly is growing. Personal devices are connecting to and accessing resourcesmore than they were, and to a large extent ueling the treadmill on which thesupport organization nds itsel today.

As we stated earlier in this paper, the larger BYOD and consumerization question iscurrently at the oreront o the issues acing many organizations. Lessons learned duringthe ramp-up o support or mobile devices will undoubtedly be revisited when compa-nies and institutions review their policies or the provision o equipment. The experi-ences that organizations have now with the security and support o mobile devices willpave the way or notebooks, laptops, and other devices in the near uture.


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About HDI

HDI, a UBM TechWeb company, is the leading proessional association and certica-tion body or technical service and support proessionals. Serving a community o over110,000 members, ollowers, customers, solution providers, and contributors, HDIhosts industry conerences and events, produces comprehensive publications and re-search, and connects solution providers with practitioners, while certiying and trainingthousands o proessionals each year.

About the Author

Roy Atkinson is HDIs senior writer/analyst. He is an HDI-certiedSupport Center Manager and a veteran o both small business andenterprise consulting, service, and support. In addition, he hasboth rontline and management experience. Roy is a member othe conerence aculty or the HDI 2012 Conerence & Expo andis known or his social media presence, especially on the topic ocustomer service. He also serves as the chapter advisor or the HDINorthern New England local chapter.

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Whtppr 0312 Mobility Redux Atkinson