Business - page 18

The concept of employees bringing their own devices to the office has seen a meteoric rise in popularity over the past couple of years. When the term BYOD first entered the IT lexicon, most CIOs and systems administrators tended to shrug off the suggestion that their company might consider such a non-traditional approach. Today, surveys show more than fifty percent of organizations are considering or have already adopted BYOD policies.

While the concept of BYOD is pretty easy to grasp (companies actively support user-owned devices and may even encourage employees to bring their iPhones, iPads, and other devices into the office), exactly what BYOD translates to in the real world can vary widely.

News media conglomerate Gannett is making a big push for mobile reporting and they’ve decided that the iPhone 4S is the perfect tool to start with for journalists across the country. To that end, the company has equipped 1,000 print and broadcast reporters with new iPhones to use for on the spot reporting, editing, and broadcasting.

The initiative was announced in December and will eventually include iPads as well as iPhones, but it is just now rolling out after the company put journalists getting the handsets through intensive training in the use of the iPhone and of the handful of apps that Gannett has chosen for reporters to use.

Since the day the original iPad was announced more than two years ago, there’s been a constant discussion about its use in healthcare. At face value, the iPad offers a lot of tools to doctors and other healthcare professionals like access to electronic medical records (EMRs), access to electronic prescribing systems, and access to a wealth of reference materials like medication guides. To some extent the same benefits are available from the iPhone and other smartphones.

Those seem like great additions to a doctor’s daily workflows – both in the office and while on rounds at hospitals. Those great healthcare features don’t live in a vacuum, however. They live on mobile devices that also allow their owners to check-in on social networks, send and receive texts and emails, play games, and do all manner of personal tasks. That has some doctors and hospitals concerned that iPad, iPhones, and other mobile devices could actually be putting patients in harm’s way.

Cloud storage provider Box today announced its new Box OneCloud initiative. With OneCloud the company is looking to create a one-stop work environment on the iPhone and iPad that’s centered around Box’s cloud storage and collaboration features. The aim is to make the Box app the hub of a range of additional iOS apps in the business and productivity space. While many apps in that space allow you to access Box storage (along with several other cloud providers like Dropbox, Google Docs, and Sugar Sync), they often have limited file management capabilities and can only access specific types of files.

Box aims to fix that by partnering with developers that offer access to Box storage and giving users that ability to launch those apps from with the Box app, which will serve as a central file management solution. The approach is a creative way to make up for the lack of a user-accessible file system in iOS.  In some ways, you can consider OneCloud to be a business or enterprise version of iCloud.

The enterprise app store is becoming a reality in many companies. Initially envisioned as a way to make internal apps available to employees, the concept has quickly grown to include public apps available in Apple’s iOS App Store. This allows businesses to offer employees a curated list of apps that relate to specific fields or job functions.

A curated list of public apps is a great idea and it can save employees both time and effort in selecting apps that can help them work more efficiently and effectively. The challenging part, however, is choosing which of the hundreds of thousands of iOS apps to include in your company’s app store.

Yesterday, we covered a report that asked whether or not most people really want the option to bring their own technology into the office. That report showed that despite the media hype and the broad interest that CIOs and IT leaders are showing in BYOD programs, it may only be one out of every five employees that’s clamoring for the right to bring their personal iPad or iPhone into the office.

If that’s the case, why are so many users hesitant or even hostile to the BYOD model?

The costs of not complying with HIPAA (the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), which includes self-reporting of data breaches, can be steep. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee recently finalized a settlement with the Department of Health and Human Services for $1.5 million for a recent breach (on top of a $17 million price tag for the investigation and remediation actions). HHS seems to be making a a show of high profile enforcement as a way to encourage better compliance among smaller organizations, including hospitals and individual medical practices.

This raises the question of whether or not using the iPad in healthcare increases the risk of privacy violations. If so, will a show of force on the part of HHS dampen the enthusiasm for the iPad in healthcare?

BYOD is certainly one of the biggest technology buzzwords right now. The concept of users supplying their own iPad, iPhone, or even their own MacBook can create challenges for IT, but it can also provides advantages. Users choosing the devices and apps that they feel most comfortable and productive using is one. Businesses not needing to pay for mobile devices themselves or plans to support them is another.

One of the basic assumptions when it comes to considering, testing, and implementing a BYOD program is that the ability to bring personal tools into the workplace is something that users ultimately want and think will improve their work. The rest of the discussion, including practical issues like device or data management and the range of devices to be support, is predicated on this core assumption that BYOD is desirable on the part of users.

But what if that isn’t really the case? According to a report based on research in Australia and New Zealand, that may not be the case and it may actually be a form of peer pressure driving the BYOD revolution more than pressure from users.

It doesn’t take a huge stretch of imagination to picture some of the ways that the iPad can be used in the workplace. The idea of it as a sales tool, an electronic medical chart, and as a digital textbook device all come immediately to mind as common on-the-job iPad uses. But the iPad’s versatility lends itself to a variety of industries and jobs that you’ve probably never considered.

One example is agriculture management from the cab of a farm combine – one of the unexpected places to find the iPad that Hard Candy Cases CEO Tim Hickman mentioned to me during a recent conversation. His company, which also produces the ruggedized Gumdrop Cases, has received bulk orders for iPad from some surprising sources and has led to iPad adoption  in places beyond where most of us would expect. I decided to follow up on that conversation with some research of my own.

Earlier this year Apple announced iTunes U, making it clear that Apple intends to make the iPad ubiquitous in academia. The iPad is truly coming into its own as a legitimate alternative to the PC. For students, this means that the iPad is quickly becoming a powerful learning tool, which is good for a lot more than reading.

I sat down with a Boston-based PhD student who, for the past year, has been using her iPad nearly exclusively for her studies. Here are the core peripherals and apps that she recommends in order to supercharge your iPad for use in the academic setting.

One of the big fears CIOs and IT staffers have about the consumerization of IT and BYOD trends is that mobile devices like the iPad and iPhone combined with personal cloud services like iCloud, Google Docs, and Dropbox make it very easy for confidential business data to leave the office and the company network.While this is a definite fear for IT staff, how do most knowledge workers view the risk and the consequences of such so-called data sprawl?

According to a recent study, four out of five workers rank removing confidential data from the office as an offense that should get a person fired and yet 90% believe that it happens on a regular basis.

LTE is one of the key features available on the new iPad. All that extra speed can be a great feature for consumers and business users alike, although the ability to burn through data that quickly means that all LTE iPad users need to be more conscious of their data use than with the previous 3G iPads (the same will no doubt be true for the next iPhone).

A new study claims that most iPad Internet access (94%) still takes place over Wi-Fi networks, however. That seems like bad news for carriers and it sounds like comforting news for CIOs and IT professionals worried about unknown iPads in their companies. After all, if only 6% of iPad connections occur over 3G/4G, then most iPads in the office are using a corporate network and can be tracked and monitored to ensure data and network security.

Unfortunately digging into the actual data from the study reveals iPad users with 3G and LTE models are actually spending a lot more than 6% of their time using their cellular connection.

Like many technology companies, Apple offers training and certification programs. The company’s certification options have typically been aimed at three different core competencies: hardware troubleshooting/repair, IT support and systems administration, and creative professionals using Apple’s “Pro” applications.

As Apple has moved out of the data center over the past year and a half, it has been making major changes to its training and certification options for IT professionals. Some of these changes could have been anticipated and some have been big surprises with major consequences to individuals and to organizations that have long employed Apple enterprise solutions.

Earlier this week, we highlighted the growing need for companies to develop more comprehensive approaches to iPhones, iPads, and other mobile devices than simply purchasing and implementing a mobile device management console. The device-only approach isn’t always a solution in itself and there’s a growing trend of focusing on managing the information and apps on an iOS device instead of (or in addition to) the device itself.

As this multi-tiered model becomes more common, businesses are typically looking at multiple solutions, which is prompting companies in this space to develop strategic partnerships or consider acquisitions as a way of offer businesses a more integrated approach. Two instances of this were the announcement of Good and Box partnering for secure data and enterprise cloud storage and Symantec’s acquisition of Nukona and Odyssey.

Another partnership was announced yesterday between MDM vendor MobileIron and enterprise wireless firm iPass.

Yesterday’s news that RIM is looking to hire iOS developers with the intention of creating iOS apps unleashed a lot of speculation about what the BlackBerry manufacturer might be planning to release for iPhones and iPads. After initially being tight-lipped and refusing to comment on the job posting, RIM’s PR team revealed that its iOS app development plans center around its BlackBerry Fusion product.

BlackBerry Fusion is RIM’s new mobile device device management solution. The product, which RIM launched earlier this year along with the first major update to its PlayBook tablet’s OS, can manage BlackBerry and PlayBook devices. RIM plans to and support for managing iOS and Android devices as well.

RIM’s statement was pretty vague beyond confirming that it’s new management solution will be the focus of this position, leaving room for speculation as to what additional features an on-device app will enable under RIM’s new management console.

RIM has making some interesting choices regarding its future over the past year. The company launched its PlayBook tablet with what was really a beta release of the OS. It expanded its device management platform to include support for managing iOS and Android devices (though many saw that move as too little openness too late in the game). And it introduced support for Android apps in last month’s PlayBook OS update.

In another move that will leave observes scratching their heads, RIM is looking to hire iOS developers. Unlike RIM’s recruitment of Android developers, this doesn’t appear to be in any way aimed at porting existing apps to the PlayBook. The job posting, which lists RIM’s Bellevue, WA location, is for an internal Senior iOS developer that would be creating enterprise-focused iOS apps for the iPhone and iPad.

Apple uses digital certificates and code signing in various ways to help keep Macs secure. One common example is that apps sold through the Mac App Store are digitally signed, which allows an individual Mac to know that it’s getting the genuine article when a user launches the App Store app. It also allows a Mac to ensure that an application hasn’t been tampered with by a malicious user or a piece of malware each time that app is launched (Mountain Lion’s Gatekeeper feature will be based on the same technology).

The same process is used with Apple’s Software Update servers. Each update from Apple is digitally signed using a certificate that let’s each Mac know that they’re getting genuine updates from Apple.

Digital certificates are designed to expire periodically and tomorrow, March 23, 2012, the certificate associated with Apple’s Software Update functionality will be expiring. Apple already has a new certificate ready that won’t expire for seven more years (2019). The transition to the certificate will be transparent for almost all Mac users, but it may create problems with some OS X Server installations.

It’s rare to see government agencies at the front of the technology curve, but it’s becoming more common with U.S. federal agencies after U.S. CIO Steven VanRoekel declared at CES that 2012 the year of mobile for the federal government. While most agencies have pushed to reevaluate their mobile technology option during the past few months, the Environmental Protection Agency seems to leading the government charge to mobile.

The EPA announced earlier this week that the agency has adopted a new “mobile first” policy. Under the policy, it is a setting forward-thinking IT mandate than even the most tech-savvy companies have yet to consider or embrace: develop solutions for mobile devices first and then re-work those solutions to function on the desktop.

Lately, RIM has been losing major enterprise customers to Apple on a regular basis. U.S. federal agencies (including NOAA and ATF) have been some of the biggest enterprise switchers from BlackBerry devices to iPhones.

Today’s bad news must have a particularly nasty sting for the BlackBerry manufacturer. For the first time, iPhone sales in RIM’s native Canada have surpassed sales of BlackBerry devices – and by a pretty wide margin. Given the sense of loyalty that many Canadian businesses and consumers have shown to RIM, which is based in Waterloo, Ontario, the new numbers highlight the extent of RIM’s challenges and shortcomings.

One of the immediate associations that most people have when they think about the iPad in business is the iPad as a sales tool. Not surprising given its form factor and the ease with which it can display presentations, offer up a portfolio, and generate quotes on the fly.

Do those abilities really add up to increased sales over binders of information, colorful brochures, and canned presentations on DVD? For home security giant ADT, the answer is an emphatic yes.

For many IT shops, the iPad and/or the iPhone can be a conundrum. While iOS has built-in enterprise capabilities, they may not be immediately apparent. There’s also the fact that Apple doesn’t act the same way as most enterprise vendors. Apple does offer enterprise sales and support teams, training and certification programs, and a solid selection of enterprise-related resources, but rarely promotes them. This can be disorienting and frustrating to most IT professionals.

Often there’s a sense of urgency around getting iOS devices integrated securely that adds to this stress – it can be because executives want them, users are bringing them in and doing work on them already with no regard for IT or policies, or because there’s been a decision to offer iPads to specific users or groups.

The ideal beginning when faced with this prospect is to take a deep breath and then to begin breaking down the issues that need to be addressed and prioritizing and handling them. As with other major IT projects, you’ll probably need to develop stop-gap measures to keep things running until your final solution is ready to be rolled out.

There are multiple ways that companies can approach mobile management. The most common approach is device management where IT pre-configure a device and locks it down by not allowing users access to certain features and/or prevents the installation of apps. There’s also the approach of locking down data in which enterprise apps allow IT to create and manage an encrypted sandbox for business data on the device. There’s also the option of taking a lighter hand and issuing policies about acceptable use where IT can use device management tools to ensure that users are complying with those policies.

There are pros and cons to each approach but the truth is that there’s no need to pick one approach over the others. An effective management strategy can actually employ multiple styles of management. It’s also important to remember that mobile management doesn’t need to be one size fits all – it’s perfectly fine to use different levels of management and security based on the job functions of users, on the ownership of devices, or on the devices themselves (and their OS version).

The idea of mixing mobile management options as a best practices got a boost this week in a pari of announcements my some of the major players in the enterprise mobility space.

A year or two ago, IT departments were focused on mobile device management (MDM) as a way to secure smartphones and other mobile devices. It was a natural extension of how IT had always handled technology in the workplace. While there are times that strict device management is the best approach (such as K-12 schools), IT departments are beginning to realize that MDM isn’t always the course of action.

In fact, the rush to lock down every device feature was little more than stale and rather old thinking on the parts of IT leaders who are now looking for better options.

According to a new report, Microsoft will launch Windows 8 this October. That tracks with the company’s announced plan to launch the latest version of Windows before the end of the. The launch will include traditional PCs like desktops and notebook as well as tablets. How successful Microsoft and its partners will be in taking business and consumer tablet marketshare away from the iPad remains an open question, however.

Over the past two years, the Internet has been flooded with stories about the next iPad-killer. The iPad-killing hype has been applied to the Cisco Cius, Motorola Xoom, BlackBerry PlayBook, HP Touch Pad, and Galaxy Tab just to name a few. Several of these products were specifically hyped at being business tablets – alternatives to the iPad in the workplace.

At the end of the day, however, the iPad still rules the tablet space in general and the business tablet in particular. Despite being a “consumer” device, the business tablet market is really the business iPad market. The latest statistic to drive this point home is that, during the new iPad launch, Apple sold more iPads in one weekend during than one quarter of Android tablets ever sold.

Sales figures like that pose a question for IT departments – Is there a point to developing support models for Android tablets?