If you search the Internet, you will notice a wide variety of IT predictions for the mobile device management industry in 2012. “Countless prognosticators, contemplators and agitators consult their digital crystal balls to make divinations ranging from duh to… huh?,” writes industry observer Pedro Pereira, adding the obvious: “At least half of them will turn out to be wrong.”

Pereira decides to hold it down to one prediction and while it’s not the most groundbreaking or daring of predictions, it is one that many agree with. He says, “Mobile devices will dominate the IT conversation in 2012. Shocking, I know, but sometimes I like to play it safe.”

Pereira adds the “steady increase of mobile devices in the workplace... will open plenty of opportunities to make a buck.” We’re always up for opportunities to make a buck, and Pereira foresees that “managed services providers (MSPs) and remote monitoring and management (RMM) vendors will be pushing mobile device management (MDM) as an important value-added service for end customers.”

Recently, IE Market Research reported that there will be about 362 million mobile connections in the United States by the end of 2012 and companies need to start to plan how they are going to handle all that.

“It is incumbent on the IT services community, including MSPs and cloud service providers, to guide their clients away from potential disastrous situations by developing and implementing MDM policies and technology,” Pereira stated.

Specifically within the small and midsize business space, security vendor AVG found that “one in six of the smallest businesses,” ten employees or fewer, “don’t protect themselves at all” from email and Web-related security risks such as malware and virus threats from mobile devices.

Mobile management tools will be front and center in 2012, and Pereira talks in the post about industry veteran Howard Cohen, senior resultant at The Tech Channel Partners Results Group, getting in contact with a “mobility management service provider” to advise clients and deliver services around managing and securing mobile devices in the workplace.

MDM is a relatively new market, which means we can look forward to lots of innovation since the profitable opportunities are so plentiful.

So there’s your invaluable prediction for 2012. Check back with us in a year.