Do CIOs Need to be Thinking About Smartphone Apps?
February 28, 2010 by Ivan Snell · Leave a Comment
It’s only a matter of time before employees want to use their smartphones for everything. So do CIOs need to start thinking about smartphone apps as part of their enterprise application strategy?
An article this week on CIO.com suggests that the answer is yes.
According to the article smartphone use is expected to double in the next five years. For CIOs such as Lev Gonick at Case Western Reserve University, the writing is on the wall: laptops are becoming second fiddle. That means CIOs must have an enterprise application strategy for these small, powerful devices.
For some job functions, such as sales and field support, the smartphone is supplanting the laptop. Other industrious users are accessing web-based enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management applications, but not all agree the day of the laptop is gone.
Charles King, analyst with Pund-IT, says that the shortcomings of today’s smartphones—poor input capabilities, small displays and a lack of processing power—limit their use as laptop replacements. Others say that there are security issues, though these are being addressed. BlackBerry Enterprise Server provides a secure and reliable connection to Microsoft (MSFT) Exchange so companies don’t need to be as concerned about regulatory compliance or threats to private company material. And Exchange ActiveSync now works on the iPhone to protect corporate e-mail access.
Analysts say smartphones will remain complementary to laptops for now. But that will change within five years as functionality improves, processors get faster, and more apps become available. If you don’t have a plan for testing enterprise services on smartphones, King says, it’s time to develop one. What’s more, any new enterprise application you deploy will likely come with a smartphone version. You should view these not as ancillary but as an inevitable part of the future.
What do you think?
An Interview With the CIO of the UK Goverment
February 28, 2010 by Ivan Snell · Leave a Comment
I came across this interview a couple of days ago. It is an interesting insight into the role of a CIO and the kinds of decisions that are having to be made in large organisations. It’s not all about technology – there are issues of data privacy and access to consider and the implications of social media are also starting to have an impact on IT strategy.