Enterprise-wide Growth (1996 – 2015)
In the second era, mobility leapfrogged, creating one of the largest and most compressed transformations ever seen in technology. Rugged devices took a back seat to a whole new generation of “smart” phones and tablets.
Unlike the majority of technologies that made their way into the enterprise via IT’s sponsorship, enterprise workers were the ones who brought consumer devices through corporations’ front doors.
Mobility in this timeframe underwent one of the largest transformations of the high-tech industry as mobile devices moved into the hands of business professionals for the first time.
These major technology achievements heralded an explosion in the demand for connected mobility. Corporate employees pushed for their devices to be able to access corporate backbone networks – unofficially at first and later as part of the BYOD movement.
Even “grey collar” employees, who blur the distinction between Operations and Corporate staff, turned to mobile for “always on” access to data in real-time. As a result, IT departments were quickly overrun with deployment and support demands for an increasingly complex array of mobile capabilities.
As “smart” phones and tablets joined the rugged devices already in place in the enterprise, the “hybrid” device environment was born, and it quickly became the norm.
The demand for support exploded as users clamored for help with almost endless combinations of consumer devices, operating systems, applications and management platforms. The relatively straight forward support needs of desktop users paled in comparison to mobile’s proliferation of devices and device types, and the velocity of frequent updates.
To help cope with this burgeoning complexity, new mobile-specific offerings debuted. Mobile Device Management (MDM), Mobile Application Management, Telecom Expense Management (TEM) and Managed Mobility Services (MMS) augmented internal IT staff, bringing specialized mobile expertise to the enterprise. In addition to helping simplify the management of mobile in the enterprise, these offerings also provided a new platform from which to view, manage and control mobile’s performance – down to the individual device.
