The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is a government agency known more for occupying itself with the matters of, well, agriculture in the United States. But when mobile technology advances at the rate it has been going at for nearly seven years, even the most non-tech agencies in government start to take action to make sure that they don't have any security vulnerabilities that could lead to chaos.
So, the USDA chose to work with Digital Management, Inc. (DMI), to get a VoIP mobility management solution called Next Generation Mobility running within its doors. It now manages 9,000 devices through the service and has the possibility of increasing that number to 100,000. The solution supports all of the most popular mobile operating systems found in smartphones and tablets, and provides four different service options that depend on the agency's needs.
Before using Next Generation Mobility, the USDA was using a program from McAfee (News - Alert), which catered to email-only phones. As smartphones became a ubiquitous part of our lives, it was time to change footing and go in a more modern direction.
A spokesperson from the USDA repeated this sentiment, saying, “The USDA's needs matured past email-only mobile devices. New features were required for secure access, mobile app management, offline capabilities, data protection, and office productivity applications.”
Indeed, as the USDA continues to roll out its new system, it will introduce a much more colorful world full of different feature-rich apps at its disposal. Making use of the cloud would also increase the potential to reduce paperwork and bureaucratic clutter.
Making the government more mobile would present possibilities for previously frustrating procedures to become more efficiently-run. Our next concern, however, would be to determine whether or not government would actually take the steps necessary to put itself on a red tape diet while embracing mobility as the saving grace that can make this a possibility.
Edited by Alisen Downey