The rapid-fire spread of mobile devices being used by enterprise employees can be a huge boon for businesses in productivity and customer service gains, but those advantages don't come without a price.

The inherent flexibility and freedom to get business done anywhere, anytime, also makes it much harder to maintain the security and control of corporate data when employees are accessing and storing business information on their smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile devices. And the rush of new devices never seems to end, making it hard to stay out in front of innovations.

"Enterprises must plan now for the mobile devices of the future that they don't even know of yet," says Kevin Benedict, principal analyst at Netcentric Strategies LLC in Boise, Idaho. "So you build an infrastructure that says it doesn't care what devices are on the end of it and you have a framework that you just plug into."

Getting there isn't easy, however. One approach that can make implementing a mobile workforce easier--or at least consistent--is through mobile device management (MDM) strategies that can help enterprises address all related mobile issues in a top-to-bottom approach.

Among the challenges that an MDM strategy can help with: Which mobile devices to support, whether to allow employees to choose and bring their own devices into work, and how to handle security for mobile devices, including whether to have remote data wiping capabilities for lost or stolen devices.



One of the first decisions to make with an MDM strategy is to figure out which devices your employees will use and whether the individual or the company will pay for them.

At New York-based Edelman, the global PR firm, most of the 3,800 employees use RIM BlackBerries, unless they have a compelling work-related reason to use something else, says John Iatonna, the vice president of information security. Those cases are decided individually by business managers -- workers can be allowed to use iPhones or iPads if needed for the work they do, but RIM devices are Edelman's enterprise standard mobile devices.

Two reasons Edelman prefers using corporate-owned BlackBerry devices: The firm can negotiate more competitive pricing through its relationship with its enterprise phone carrier and it can maintain tighter management and security compared to other devices. "It's much easier to get hold of and track your BlackBerries than it is [other types of] smartphones," Iatonna says. "We do have an Apple and Android population, but those devices weren't designed with an enterprise environment in mind."

"BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) is a much more developed and mature enterprise MDM system than the other smartphone MDM vendors," Iatonna said. And even though RIM has been losing market share to other vendors, its products and enterprise-level security capabilities still offer the best answers for Edelman's needs, he said.

For its part, SAP AG, the Germany-based software vendor, began its mobile workforce project in 2010, says global CIO Oliver Bussmann. At the time it included some 14,000 SAP-purchased Apple iPhones and iPads, and personal iPhones or iPads for another 500 users, who had to sign consent forms agreeing to SAP's terms of use, which vary from country to country depending on business requirements. The first employees to be brought into the mobile strategy were workers in the development organization, followed by executives and the entire global sales force, he said.

The reason for that specific order of rollout, Bussman explains: "We made the development teams that were building the apps test them as part of the process." Then, "executives demanded solutions quickly after that and then drove direction to focus on sales and other field resources."

Starting this past January, SAP expanded the program to also include more than 500 SAP-purchased Samsung Android Galaxy SII smartphones and Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets, with more to be deployed by employees who request them based on a compelling business reason.

"Our strategy is to be device agnostic," Bussmann said, "The IT organization has to be in the driver's seat. If the CIO doesn't embrace the mobile trend, then the business organization bypasses the IT organization and that's not a good thing. Then it's being done without control and security and that can have an impact potentially on the company."

Centreville, Va.-based Carfax uses a blended approach, with some workers using company-issued iPhones and iPads and others using their own Android devices, says CIO Phil Matthews. "We allow other employees to use a BYOD (bring-your-own-device) approach where it works better for them or where they want to keep their device on their personal mobile plan."

The company's 400 field workers use devices that are company-provided or paid for through reimbursements. "We actually wanted people to have a consistent experience, so we chose iPads and iPhones as our main devices, but some people wanted Android devices" and are allowed to use them, he says. Workers previously carried laptops and printers along with BlackBerry devices, but productivity rose with the iPads and iPhones, he explains. "Our sales reps can complete more activities with the iPads and iPhones and we can provide them with mobile applications that allow them to collaborate much more easily than in the past."

Next page: Managing the expense associated with mobile devices

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AppId is over the quota
The truth can be a bitter pill to swallow, but Microsoft's brass is reportedly owning up to its mistakes.
Both The Verge and Neowin say that in an internal Microsoft meeting this week, CEO Steve Ballmer and COO Kevin Turner were blunt in discussing some of the problems that have cropped up in the nine months since Windows 8 launched.
"We're not selling as many Windows devices as we want to," Ballmer admitted, according to The Verge, talking about the whole range of Windows-powered hardware, from phones to PCs to tablets.
Analyst numbers back up Ballmer's stark reality: PC sales are hemorrhaging, Windows tablets have yet to get off the ground, and while Windows Phones snatched the third-place crown away from BlackBerry earlier this year, Android and iOS still account for more than 92 percent of all smartphone sales, according to the IDC research group. And nothing Windows RT-related is selling whatsoever.
Microsoft's Surface RT tablet.
That includes Microsoft's own dive into the hardware side of things. At the meeting, Ballmer said "We built a few more [Surface RT] devices than we could sell," The Verge reports. You can say that again. Microsoft recently took a whopping $900 million accounting charge after slashing the price of its Surface RT tablet to $350.
Even so, Ballmer told Microsoft employees that the next-gen Surface RT sports "typical improvements" and is being tested right now, according to Neowin. That jibes with earlier reports that the second iteration of the Surface RT will include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor.
When asked for a response, a Microsoft spokesperson said the company doesn't comment on rumors or speculation.
Slowly and steadily, however, Microsoft is correcting the biggest stumbles surrounding the Windows 8 release.
Microsoft 'stores-within-a-store' are popping up in 500 Best Buys across the U.S.
When Windows 8 first launched, it was hard to find touchscreen devices at retail during the crucial holiday season, including Surface tablets, which were limited to Microsoft Stores at the time. In the months since, the early manufacturing hiccups have smoothed out. Touchscreen laptops and hybrids are now common, and Microsoft has taken steps to spread the Surface far and wide to multiple retailers across the nation.
Pricing of the first batch of Windows RT tablets has also plummeted, which should help to quell complaints that slates running the fledgling OS were overpriced at the same cost as an iPad.
But retail rejiggering alone won't right the Windows ship. The biggest complaints about the first wave of Windows 8 devices weren't so much about the hardware as much as the software
itself. It's hard to sell tablets with a lackluster app selection.
"One of the challenges [for Windows 8] is how to drive the prices down," Asus chairman Jonney Shih told PCWorld in an interview. "Another is Windows 8 apps. Android is already around 700,000 apps, and Windows is still trying very hard to increase its apps."
Realistically, Microsoft doesn't have a shot of catching up to the sheer number of apps available for iOS and Android, either on Windows 8 or Windows Phone. And the company seems to realize that; Neowin says that Ballmer told employees that landing Instagram on Windows Phone is more important than landing 900,000 more lower-tier apps.
That mirrors what we've been saying since before Windows 8 launched: Microsoft needs to focus on quality apps, not the sheer quantity of apps. And that's been a struggle thus far.
"One potential fly in the ointment for Windows 8 is the lack of many top apps like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and even TV apps like Time Warner Cable," Patrick Moorhead, the founder and principal analyst and Moor Insights and Strategy, recently told PCWorld.
Rhapsody was one of the big-name apps released during Build, but the Windows Store's selection still lags overall.
That lack of big-name standard bearers has an effect on the entire Windows Store ecosystem.
"There was, and is, a bit of an 'app gap,' where there may not be killer apps on the platform to help pull consumers into it, which mirrors back into the willingness of developers to write for the platform," Directions on Microsoft analyst Wes Miller recently told PCWorld. "It's a catch-22."
However, Microsoft has made improvements in this space. While there are still numerous glaring Windows Store no-shows, several big-name apps were announced for Windows 8 at Microsoft's annual Build conference— Facebook, Foursquare, and Flipboard among them—and app submissions have spiked in recent months.
Windows 8.1 is a stellar update to the core Windows 8 experience, but one that tosses few bones to users who still prefer the core Windows 7 experience.
Speaking of Build, the impending Windows 8.1 update unveiled at the conference stands ready to really polish Windows 8's rough spots and make the Windows 8 experience much more palatable. Simply put, it's a terrific update. It won't
, however, win over desktop diehards who loathe the jarring transition to the modern interface—and that makes Asus' Shih less-than-optimistic.
"In general for the total Windows 8 [experience], I think it’s not that promising," he told PCWorld. "One of the reason is, maybe, it’s still not that easy for people to switch to the new experience. For example, for Windows 8, the hottest app, sarcastically, is the one that puts the Start [button] back."
It's great to hear that Steve Ballmer and the rest of the top brass at Microsoft are aware of their biggest problems, and even better that they're taking the necessary steps to correct those issues. (Shih is glad to see the Start button's return in Windows 8.1, for example, even in its altered form.) But revolutionary change isn't accomplished overnight, and until users become accustomed to the modern UI, expecting Windows device sales to surge—for the Surface RT or anything else—may be wishing for a bit much.
One thing is certain going forward, however: In this battle of wills, Microsoft won't back down from Live Tiles.
Updated at 12:50 P.M. ET 7/26 with Microsoft comment.

Brad Chacos spends the days jamming to Spotify, digging through desktop PCs and covering everything from BYOD tablets to DIY tesla coils.
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