What do apes running around in West Africa with AK-47’s have to do with IT mobility? Recently, the execs of mobile device management providers MobileIron, Apperian, Good Technology and Tangoe (News - Alert) joined together to give a lecture called, “Mobilizing Your Business: Challenge or Opportunity,” and played this video to warn companies of what will happen if they allow their employees too many liberties with using their mobile devices at work.

The video was likely an attempt to add some comic relief to an otherwise dry corporate IT event. But the video may also reflect some of the fears companies have had about adjusting their enterprise and compromising security in order to indulge the needs of their employees. In a technologically progressive work setting, how can employers who encourage tech-innovation stifle their employees from using methods that they have found to best progress their production?

Well, they really can’t and even farmers in South Korea rely on smartphones as a vital tool in maintaining the modern farm. Forrester (News - Alert) Research reports that 77 percent of smartphones used at work are phones that the employees themselves have selected. People in the tech-industry are also more likely to prefer to purchase the phone they want, than to settle for some archaic corporate-issued Blackberry.

Selecting one’s own phone may have been fine and dandy, except for the fact that there are so many mobile devices available, and these devices are rapidly morphing into different, better devices. How can a company’s enterprise keep up?

Here is the solution, announced to the press, that many have been awaiting:

“Mission Critical Wireless (News - Alert) LLC (MCW), a enterprise mobility management services provider, has entered into a strategic partnership with MobileIron, an innovator in enterprise management and security for mobile devices and applications ….The joint offering better enables IT departments to stay on top of new device and software releases and implement tactics to effectively safeguard the enterprise network ahead of technological advance.”

Bob Tinker, one of the speakers at the “Mobilizing Your Business” lecture states, “Mobile IT became a reality in 2011 when the mobile industry figured out IT and the IT industry figured out mobile.”