Verizon Mobile Enablement Platform Shows Trend

By Gary Kim, Contributing Editor

Verizon's new "Mobile Services Enablement Platform" helps global enterprises design their applications for a mobile environment. It also illustrates how Verizon's business has changed over the last decade. For starters, Verizon's offerings for global enterprises are built on the foundation of the old MCI, whose business originally was built on providing long distance voice and capacity services to enterprises. 

But there's a difference, today. The new platform aims to adapt existing enterprise software to run on mobile devices. To be sure, MCI long ago realized that a certain amount of systems integration was both a requirement and a revenue opportunity in the global enterprise space. 

What's new here is the attempt to create a framework for extending those enterprise apps to mobile devices. In addition to providing customizable application-development templates that can be tailored to create new business-specific applications, the platform is pre-integrated with major enterprise software applications including Siebel, SAP, Oracle, Remedy, Salesforce.com and Amdocs. 

So one angle is that where the original core business for Verizon's global enterprise business consisted of mostly fixed-line communications across national borders, these days it is more "mobile transformation." In part, that is because enterprises have made clear that this is among their priorities.

By 2015, software development in the enterprise space will have shifted "massively" to mobility, according to the 2010 IBM (News - Alert) Corp. Tech Trends Survey. The online query of 2,000 IT developers and specialists across 87 countries highlights the need by enterprises to build applications that take advantage of mobile technologies.

Some 55 percent of respondents anticipate that development for mobile devices will eclipse development for PCs and servers. That includes devices such as the Apple iPhone and Google (News - Alert) Android handsets, as well as tablet PCs like the Apple iPad and BlackBerry PlayBook made by Research In Motion. 

To be sure, the "Mobile Services Enablement Platform" seems aimed at the use of enterprise applications by enterprise personnel in the course of their work, not the extension of customer-facing applications that also is going to be a big trend for enterprises. 

That's obvious from the value Verizon says MSEP provides. Aside from moving apps to mobiles, and off the desktop, mobile device management is part of the suite of tools, allowing administrators to deliver, authorize and enforce mobile policies across devices, groups or individual users.

Security management also is part of the offering, allowing administrators to enforce policies on access and establish “lock/wipe” policies by which devices that are stolen or lost can be locked by the administrator and data wiped out.

Encryption of information used by devices and data cards; firewall and antivirus protection also are part of the overall offering. 

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The offer includes inventory and expense management, allowing administrators and others to track spending and usage, reporting, auditing, electronic billing and chargeback information for accounting purposes. The same platform can also track global wireline telecom spending.

Logistics also is important, allowing enterprises to automate the procurement workflow and device deployments across carriers globally.

At some point, some of us would expect to see additional offerings that help enterprises create and manage customer-facing mobile applications that extend beyond what has been possible in the past. Only a third of 200 enterprise respondents surveyed by Forrester (News - Alert) Research have had a consumer-focused mobile strategy in place for more than a year. Online companies, media companies and financial institutions are often more advanced than firms in other industries, as you might guess. 

Forty-five percent of respondents are just waking up to the mobile opportunity and thinking about integrating mobile into their overall corporate strategy, just like they did a decade ago with the emerging online channel. For the majority of respondents, mobile is mainly seen as a way to increase customer engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty. However, that in itself is a big shift, in some ways. Up to this point, most enterprise mobility initiatives have been to support and extend worker app access. In the coming wave, enterprises will seek to extend mobile capabilities outward to end users and customers. 

So where the traditional enterprise focus might have been on extending core inventory, ordering and contact systems to mobile devices used by employees, the advent of social networking and other new online consumer behaviors will at some logical point also become more important.

Many respondents who think it is too early to focus on such mobile capabilities tend to claim that they first need to fix the basics regarding their overall digital and social initiatives. At some point, given the explosive growth of consumer mobile Internet and application behavior, enterprises will want to extend their customer-facing marketing, branding and fulfillment activities to mobile channels as well. 

Facebook’s (News - Alert) mobile global monthly audiences skyrocketed from 65 million users in September 2009 to 150 million users in July 2010.

Sixteen percent of Twitter users now start with mobile, versus five percent in April 2010. Over the same time frame, the number of mobile Twitter users has increased by 62 percent. It is becoming increasingly difficult, in other words, to conduct social media initiatives without considering the mobility angle.

In a larger sense, Verizon's new platform shows how the global enterprise business has changed over the last decade. To remain relevant and grow revenue, firms that once supplied wireline connectivity have found they must integrate wireless services and move "upstream" into application enablement. 

Gary Kim (News - Alert) is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Gary’s articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Jaclyn Allard

(source: http://unified-communications.tmcnet.com/topics/unified-communications/articles/118200-verizon-mobile-enablement-platform-shows-trend.htm)

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