Trend 4: More advanced and data-heavy mobile applications and services on employees' mobile devices require more sophisticated monitoring and management.
Over the past several years many industries have come to rely upon mobile enterprise applications. BlackBerry devices, for example, have become de rigueur among investment bankers and lawyers who need always-on access to e-mail, calendar and market information. Government organizations are using mobile devices to capture information from remote government employees for a wide range of tasks, including Emergency Medical Services (EMS), traffic management and even animal control and tracking. In the health-care industry, physicians and case workers can now capture and access health information at point of care using their mobile devices. Popular mobile enterprise applications used across all industries include sales-force automation, field-force automation, fleet management, inventory management, mobile tech and wireless CRM.
Employee mobile devices often contain a wide range of applications and data files, both company-issued and personal. However, according to the Coleman Parkes survey, 63 percent of CIOs interviewed do not actively monitor the types of data that employees are storing on their devices. Nothing prevents employees from installing data and applications onto their devices that could cause problems for the company - from unknowingly circulating viruses to not playing well with corporate systems or not adhering to corporate security policies.
Trend 5: More and more sophisticated security threats are appearing as new devices provide richer targets.
Although, so far, infestation of wireless handsets by Internet-based security threats has been relatively low, new threats to mobile devices, including malicious programs (viruses, worms and Trojan horses) continue to appear. In just the last few months, two new Trojan horse viruses, one targeting Symbian SMS messages and another targeting specific Windows Mobile programs; two new worms, one targeting particular Symbian phones and one targeting multimedia cards; and a new spy-ware application have shown up in the market. Thankfully, none of these malicious bits of code have caused widespread damage. However, despite the fact that the current threat is not particularly high, most industry experts are saying that the iPhone, Android, and mobile devices with WiFi and other broadband capabilities will undoubtedly be rich targets for malware and viruses in the coming years.
Effective management of a company's mobile devices, data and applications will mean faster mobilization of enterprise applications, which, in turn, will lead to increased employee productivity at all levels of the enterprise. Recognition of the trends driving mobile adoption and the unique challenges associated with managing and securing mobile devices is a good first step in ensuring that corporate data is protected and the business is kept safe while it moves forward with mobilization initiatives. The next step is to make sure policies and systems are in place to effectively manage and protect mobile devices, data and applications while supporting the people who increasingly depend on them.