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Mobility: An IT Perspective
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Today’s workforce is rapidly becoming mobile. According to a survey conducted by Simpson Carpenter in September 2005, employees spend on average, one third of their time out of the office, and almost half their time in the office away from their desks. And that trend is only growing. IDC projects say that by 2009 there will be more than 878 million mobile workers worldwide.
In order to stay ahead of the competition, organizations are faced with the challenge of meeting workforce demands to provide them with the functionality that will keep them thoroughly informed, responsive and constantly connected. And with more and more workers spending greater lengths of time away from their desks, businesses are increasingly looking at how to capitalize on the significant benefits of enterprise mobility.
While mobile solutions offer organizations powerful tools for improved productivity and increasing revenues, they also present critical challenges for IT. Intellisync Mobile Suite from Nokia provides a comprehensive solution to address these key concerns.
Intellisync Mobile Suite from Nokia enables IT to manage critical functionality, such as providing mobile access to email, calendar, contacts, corporate directories and other applications. Through device management, IT gains the ability to distribute and synchronize files on mobile devices, as well as the ability to configure, backup, and restore them remotely. Device management provides easy-to-use tools needed to control a mobile deployment. With the Nokia solution, mobile device and application deployment, support, maintenance and security is made simple and cost-effective.
Addressing Business Needs
As the mobile workforce increasingly relies on a proliferation of remote devices…quot; from smartphones, laptops and tablet PCs, to PDAs…quot;they are demanding greater access to the tools and applications that allow them to remain connected and be more productive.
For example, a busy executive needs push email on their mobile device so they can respond to a time sensitive communication on the way to the airport. A sales representative needs real-time access to contacts and calendars in order that they can be more responsive to customers and close more deals. Knowledge workers need access to corporate data and applications on the network so they can more effectively collaborate with team members from a remote location. These workers know that mobility can be a major business differentiator, helping them to be more informed, agile and capable.
Yet, with these workforce demands come significant challenges. IT administrators and managers are faced with real concerns over security, manageability and cost.
The Impact of Mobility on IT
As mobile workers increasingly access confidential information within an organization’s IT infrastructure, administrators are faced with real security concerns. Critical corporate data must not be compromised. Questions arise over how mobile access to an organization’s network will be controlled and whether user authentication can be employed? What happens if a mobile device is lost or stolen? Can data on the device be encrypted so proprietary information is protected? And with the malicious spread of hackers and viruses, is it possible to protect mobile devices and the company network from these outside threats?
With these security concerns come equally critical questions surrounding manageability. IT administrators need a mobility solution that is highly manageable. They need to know if the solution they are considering is capable of managing multiple devices from multiple vendors, multiple device clients, and interoperating with multiple backend systems. In addition, they need to know if corporate standards for use can be implemented, such as setting email storage capacity, time limits, and the size of attachments. Can programming updates be “pushed out” remotely over-the-air to devices regardless of geographic location, so workers don’t have to bring them in to IT, causing further burdens to already stretched resources? Does the solution provide backup and restore capability so data on a lost or stolen device can be instantly replicated on a new device, thus minimizing downtime?
Ever-present are concerns over costs as they relate to implementation, integration, maintenance, support, servers and asset management. IT administrators need to know what strains the mobility solution they choose will put on valuable IT resources. Can the solution drive efficiency, while minimizing the requirements for IT resources, thereby lowering total cost of ownership? And will it impact ROI corporate-wide? The Nokia mobility solution helps customers address these critical areas of concern.
In the coming issues, we will continue to discuss in more details the Intellisync Mobile Suite from Nokia.
Reference
Mobility an IT Perspective White Paper from Nokia
Posted by ROOT Technologies
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