Although there were many organisations exploring the potential of mobile access to information in 2011 the emphasis was on the use of smartphones. Most of the early adopters were in the IT industry, anxious to gain experience that would enable them to offer commercial solutions in 2012. In the course of 2011 there were a number of important developments in enterprise mobile delivery, notably the realisation that Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) was going to be a very important strategy to support, and in addition tablet devices (in particular the Apple iPad2) began to be widely adopted in organisations around the world.
Over the last decade intranet investment has focused on providing support to employees based in offices. Most organisations have a substantial number of employees who are almost constantly on the road, working with suppliers, customers and prospects. There is now the capability to deliver a wide range of information content and services (notably collaboration) to these employees, making use of a combination of smartphone, tablet and pc devices. The need to support a BYOD policy means that employees may well start asking why their organisation is being slow to move into mobile services when they see competitors being more innovative and committed to this approach.
In 2013 Apple will probably be releasing the next version of its iPad, Microsoft will be launching Windows 8 and Office 15 with strong mobile capabilities and 4G/LTE broadband services will be widely available in the USA and starting to be rolled out in Europe. Not all organisations will need to invest in mobile-ready websites, intranets and other enterprise applications, but for many others the quality of their mobile services offering to employees in 2013 could have significant business 0utcomes.
In our new Research Note we highlight the outcomes of a number of recent research reports, consider issues such as information security, Apple’s enterprise strategy and the dark side of mobility and make ten recommendations for actions that should be taken in 2012 within the context of planning for enterprise mobile delivery in 2013.
Martin White