One of the CES Mobile App Showdown winners was SecondLine, an Android/IPhone compatible app that adds IP based dial tone, automatically switching over WiFi, 3G or 4G networks. Toktumi, the company that created the app, also provides virtual PBX and UC services to individuals and businesses. How hard would it be to take that same solution and make the IP based "second line" a station off an enterprise communications server? All you’d need is for that same device to be able to dock to an enterprise telephone hardware component and we have a pretty cool FMC solution.

 

With all of this in place on the network for enabling FMC, a hardware aspect will likely be a business driver. In this case the hardware is batteries. Power backup for Ethernet based VoIP phones is extremely expensive.

 

The first time I was involved in an enterprise voice over IP station employment, I recognized power protection as a huge minus for VoIP using Power over Ethernet. It takes so much more backup to protect a VoIP station from a power outage for four hours than it did for a TDM based station that most deployments reduce the power protection that was originally expected from a legacy system. A dockable mobile device would solve this problem. Mobile phones have a built-in battery backup--the battery. As long as the phone is docked it is using building power, and in an outage you'd have 8,24 or even 48 hours of additional power. In a worst case, the phone can run off a car charger (try doing that with a PoE based VoIP phone!).

 

BYOD Not Likely
There is a lot of talk about BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) business solutions, but I hear much less enthusiasm for the idea from IT managers than from companies trying to sell management solutions for BYOD and other mobility applications. Even if smartphones or tablets become the primary computing interface in the enterprise, it does not necessarily mean that these devices are owned by the employee instead of the company.

 

I suspect that my personal experience with smartphones is much like a lot of users. I am not that interested in a phone for entertainment. My phone is slightly more than a voice only device, but it is still a device with the primary purpose of communication, via email, text and voice. With the arguable exception of video, I saw very few applications (even enabled by fast 4G networks) that will really enhance productivity for a business user. Verizon's new 4G LTE network supports download speeds of 5 to 12 Mbps and upload speeds of 2 to 5 Mbps, but the primary applications that were being demonstrated were streaming video, music and social connectivity. Just as the morning session described, the hyper connected consumer is focused on texting, watching content, watching friends and social networking. In that session Irv Henderson, Yahoo's VP of Product Management for Mobile and Connected Devices discussed optimizing the user experience by keeping track of "where they are and what they are doing". Yahoo is not the only content provider is looking to “optimize” user activity. As long as media content is driven by advertising, the need to track where the consumer is located, what they are browsing for and whose tweets they track will continue. What IT decision maker will want these devices accessing business applications on an internal network?

 

Everywhere you hear that consumers are "more tech savvy" than the prior generation. Consumers consume more technology than ever before, but relative to the amount of time spent with the technology, most know much less about how it works than ever. One good example is security. A recent Rasmussen Reports survey concluded that 78% of Internet users who regularly use the Internet are at least somewhat concerned about the privacy of their online searches, with 40% who are very concerned. But actual consumer behavior seems to indicate otherwise. They allow themselves to be tracked by Foursquare, tolerate shifting privacy policies from Facebook and accept Gmail ads based on the content of their communications. Sure, these are personal choices in exchange for free service, but they are not likely to be tolerated in an enterprise network environment. As mobile devices become more sophisticated on a consumer level, it will be more difficult to control the device in a business environment.

 

Maybe Users Won't want to BYOD
Most of the conversations about allowing consumer devices on networks are addressed from an IT perspective. What about the end users? Maybe the end user doesn’t want the device that they use in their personal life to be their company work tool. As smartphones and tablets become much more personal, with many more media applications and social applications, users may be loathe to make this their enterprise work tool as well. With a corporate liable device, businesses have a right to control the content in terms of both security and appropriateness. In June of 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employers have the right to search through text messages, including personal ones, sent by workers if they have reason to believe that workplace rules are being violated. In the case that generated the ruling, a California police officer was sending messages from his department-issued Blackberry. If a business was dependent on individual liable devices (to conduct business), what is considered appropriate? How can users control incoming content during paid work hours? On the other hand, walk the hallways of many businesses, and it is amazing what folks will shop for and look at on a company PC. Employees want reasonable access to the Internet, even for personal purposes. 

 

Enterprise Virtualization
As far as enterprise use, I think there is already a movement towards these kind of solutions. In one way we are seeing more centralized enterprise applications through VM Ware and thin clients. A powerful smartphone will be sufficient to store individual files in between visits to branches or for home use, and with increased docking capabilities, could replace many business laptops or desktops.

 

The whole reasoning behind the virtualization of the enterprise computing is better control of the applications and lower costs for devices. Many companies may be fretting over their increasing costs for mobile devices, but if the next generation of mobile devices can replace PCs, the result is the thin client environment and net savings that drive centralization and virtualization to begin with. I.T. will attain the goal of managing fewer PCs and reducing costs without inheriting a new set of issues associated with user managed devices.

 

Also, these solutions will get cheaper. All the new 4G Android products launched at CES are the first generation and it will not be long before the costs decrease.

 

It will be a long time before there is enough universality in the hardware interfaces to cost effectively deploy BYOD solutions for an enterprise. By that time, the hardware will become cheap enough that there will be no good reason for the enterprise to allow an outside device as the primary interface. With decreasing device costs, I do not see why enterprise would take this risk. Much of the costs of supporting IT assets is not the hardware itself, it is the troubleshooting and support. By allowing users to bring their own devices, we may save a few pennies on the hardware in exchange for pounds and pounds of support costs, legal and personnel issues, and multiple standards to support. 

 

Hardware
I expected to spend a lot of time reviewing 4G applications and capabilities, but this year it was all about the hardware. In an afternoon session regarding mobile trends, Panelist Roy Taylor, the General Executive Vice President of MasterImage 3D’s Mobile Division, predicted that we should expect to see more processing power, with quad core processing, increasing storage and a richer media and screen experience. It sounds a lot like the evolution of PCs. Madhava Enros, the Mobile User Experience Lead at Mozilla, predicted wireless HDMI in the phones, which is already possible via external adapters.

 

The hardware was amazing at CES. In both the consumer side and the business side, virtualization will happen because the interfaces are catching up with the overall concept. Even though consumers' embrace of these concepts and products for entertainment purposes is a significant driver in their development, the distinct business purposes of the same devices in enterprise communications is likely to ensure that the business and consumer network remain similar but parallel worlds. 

 

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A side note: Headset Prediction--I really was optimistic three years ago after CES about the enterprise embracing soft phones. My reasoning was that mandated use of headsets on cars would get people so accustomed to using hands-free devices that it would be simple to deploy hands-free over a PC. Within a few months after the law being implemented in California, California's own first lady was caught driving while talking on her Blackberry. As I drive the infamous Southern California freeways I see countless examples of this law being violated, with folks thinking that holding the phone slightly away from their face somehow complies with it being hands-free.

 

 

"SCTC Perspectives" is written by members of the Society of Communications Technology Consultants, an international organization of independent information and communication technology professionals serving clients in all business sectors and government worldwide.