Mobile business applications have been effective at giving employees in the field the ability to keep business moving wherever they may be – whether than means maintaining high-tech airport x-ray machines and medical equipment or keeping beer flowing in pubs and hotels. Tactical mobile applications have continued to prove valuable, and this success is causing another shift in mobile application deployments. Field sales people are seeing field service engineers tap into customer information from their Smartphones and asking management, "Why can't we have what they have?" And so mobility has begun to permeate the enterprise.

 

An average of 44% to 54% large businesses the U.S. have stated that sales force automation, field force and Web browsing of corporate applications are the next critical application focuses for mobility projects. At some point, it’s reasonable to assume that we won't even need to specify "mobile applications" because it will be assumed that most applications are mobile in nature.

 

This bodes well for users who hope to have more information at their fingertips and the ability to do more with it. But what about for the IT organization? How do IT organizations cope with giving users flexibility, while also maintaining control and managing cost?

 

One of the key areas being looked at by CIOs and IT managers is how best to manage mobile devices and treat them as business tools. People are seeing the value of using devices for more than just email. Once IT departments begin to see multiple business units requesting mobile solutions, they start to move away from tactical point solutions in favor of thinking strategically about a mobility platform that supports multiple devices, networks and back-end systems. As IT managers scramble to manage these mobility requirements, user preferences and budget requirements, they inevitably realize that when it comes to mobility solutions, one size does not fit all.