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Posts Tagged ‘tablets’

10 Mobile Device Management Leaders That Help IT Control #BYOD, #Gartner, #Citrix, #MDM

Consumers love their smartphones and tablets, so it should come as no surprise that they want to use their devices at work. The pressure to develop and deploy a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy is on and coming from every direction, including the ‘C’ suite of executives who tend to be especially keen on using smartphones and tablets for their work.

Managing devices in a BYOD environment is no small feat, and the right mobile device management (MDM) product is a key component in making it work. Here are 10 leading MDM vendors in the market today, drawn from the leaders and visionaries in Gartner’s 2013 Magic Quadrant for Mobile Device Management Software.

Magic Quadrant

Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Mobile Device Management Software
Figure 1.Magic Quadrant for Mobile Device Management Software

 
 

Source: Gartner (May 2013)

Continue reading here!

//Richard

 

#BYOD: From optional to mandatory by 2017, says #Gartner

I agree with this great article and the analysis made by Gartner.

Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) has for some time been gaining traction in the workplace, as not only a way of freeing up IT costs but also liberalizing workers from being virtually chained, clunky, aging machines at their desks.

But latest research from Gartner suggests that by 2017, half of employers may impose a mandatory BYOD policy — requiring staffs to bring their own laptop, tablet and smartphone to work.

As an optional policy, workplaces still have an IT fallback option, but many are choosing to bring their own tablets and smartphones to work in order to work more effectively using the technology they feel more comfortable with.

Some interesting tidbits from the research:

  • 38 percent of companies expect to stop providing workplace devices to staff by 2016. (PCs, such as desktops and laptops, are included in the definition of BYOD.)
  • BYOD is most prevalent in midsize and larger enterprises, often generating between $500m-$5bn in revenue per year, with 2,500-5,000 employees on the roster.
  • BRIC nations, such as India, China, and Brazil, will most likely already be using a personal device — typically a “standard mobile phone” — at work.
  • Meanwhile, companies in the U.S. are more likely to allow BYOD than those in Europe (likely due to stronger data protection rules, see below).
  • Around half of all BYOD programs provide a partial reimbursement, while full reimbursement costs “will become rare.”
  • Gartner vice president David Willis says companies should “subsidize only the service plan on a smartphone.”

But there’s a problem within. Those who have yet to adopt a BYOD policy often generally cite one of two good reasons (or both): interoperability and…

Continue reading here!

//Richard

Do you really need a #BYOD policy? – via @GeneMarks

February 27, 2013 Leave a comment

This is a really good article by Gene Marks!

Social media.  Cloud computing.  Gamification.  SaaS.  Social CRM. Virtualization.  Mobile.  Every year we hear of the latest technology issues facing small business owners like me.   And now it’s BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).  Everywhere I read in the tech world it’s BYOD.  That’s because with the proliferation of smartphones, tablets and mini-laptops it’s become the hot tech security issue.  Whitepapers are written.  Seminars are conducted. Roundtables are moderated.  It’s a BYOD year.

I have 10 people in my company.  And a half dozen other contractors.  These people are using smartphones, tablets and laptops to access our data.  We do not have a BYOD policy.  Do I really need one?  Do all businesses, big or small, need to really worry about this?  Or is just another scare tactic from a bunch of IT guys looking to put fear into their clients’ minds and generate additional billable hours.

Hmmm.

The fact that everyone in my company has a different smartphone is of no concern to me.  Why should I care if Sam prefers his iPhone but Josh likes his Droid?  They are using their phones to call clients on Verizon or AT&T or whatever so I’m not exposed to any risk there.  The same with texting.  But uh oh…then there’s email.  Am I exposed to security issues when they send and retrieve email from our server?  No.  That’s because we have a hosted mail server and each employee has their own login to their email account.  They set up their email on their own with instructions we gave them.  Viruses, spam and all the other evil things that could happen via email are (hopefully) controlled by the security software running at the server level.

Read more…

The Business Case for Mobility Services – #Mobility, #BYOD, #Citrix, #Gartner

January 28, 2013 Leave a comment

I must agree that all these mobile devices and BYOD etc. are putting challenges as well as opportunities on businesses. But there are not many out there with a clear strategy and business view on how to grasp the opportunities and WHY. Do you have a clear strategy on how to address for instance BYOD?

This video explores the business case for adopting and integrating Mobility Services into a Solution Provider’s deliverables.

And what’s also interesting in this topic of discussion is the Gartner Hype Cycle of Innovation.

This was the hype cycle for year 2012

Image Source :Givinginadigitalworld

//Richard

Tablets are crushing PC sales, Gartner finds

January 16, 2013 Leave a comment

Don’t blame Windows 8 or the economy for poor PC sales, analyst says

People are buying tablets to replace old PCs, which explains why PC sales were so dismal over the holidays, according to Gartner.

Small, portable, capable, inexpensive, touchscreen tablets grab sales from low-end PCs and mean that old PCs will not be replaced with new ones, says Mikako Kitagawa, a Gartner principal analyst, and that is a significant change in how PC sales work.

“Whereas as once we imagined a world in which individual users would have both a PC and a tablet as personal devices, we increasingly suspect that most individuals will shift consumption activity to a personal tablet, and perform creative and administrative tasks on a shared PC,” Kitagawa says.

“This transformation was triggered by the availability of compelling low-cost tablets in 2012, and will continue until the installed base of PCs declines to accommodate tablets as the primary consumption device.”

That is the battle Windows 8 is fighting, Gartner says, although the scarcity of Windows 8 touch devices may so far have hampered sales. With new touch machines being promised for later this year, that may help Windows 8 grab a larger share of PC sales but not help the overall number of PCs sold, Gartner says.

Sales were down 4.9% in Q4 2012 compared to Q4 2011, Gartner says, which goes along with IDC numbers from last week, although IDC’s number, 6.4%, is larger. “During the holiday season, consumers no longer viewed PCs as the number one gift item,” Gartner said…

Continue to read here!

//Richard

Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms – #Gartner, #EPP via @rspruijt

January 14, 2013 1 comment

Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms

 
2 January 2013 ID:G00239869
Analyst(s): Peter Firstbrook, John Girard, Neil MacDonald

VIEW SUMMARY

The endpoint protection platform provides a collection of security utilities to protect PCs and tablets. Vendors in this market compete on the quality of their protection capabilities, the depth and breadth of features, and the ease of administration.

Market Definition/Description

The enterprise endpoint protection platform (EPP) market is a composite market primarily made up of collections of products. These include:

  • Anti-malware
  • Anti-spyware
  • Personal firewalls
  • Host-based intrusion prevention
  • Port and device control
  • Full-disk and file encryption, also known as mobile data protection
  • Endpoint data loss prevention (DLP)
  • Vulnerability assessment
  • Application control (see Note 1)
  • Mobile device management (MDM)

These products and features are typically centrally managed and ideally integrated by shared policies.

DLP, MDM and vulnerability assessment are also evaluated in their own Magic Quadrant or MarketScope analyses. Longer term, portions of these markets will get subsumed by the EPP market, as the personal firewall, host intrusion prevention, device control and anti-spyware markets have in the past. EPP suites are a logical place for convergence of these functions. Indeed, 53% of organizations in a recent Gartner survey1 already use a single vendor for several of these functions, or are actively consolidating products. In particular, mobile data protection is the leading complement to EPP and purchasing decisions regarding the two products are increasingly made together. For most organizations, selecting a mobile data protection system from their incumbent EPP vendors will meet their requirements.

In 2012, the large enterprise EPP market is still dominated by Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro, which together represent approximately 68% of the total revenue of Magic Quadrant participants. Sophos and Kaspersky Lab are the two other global leaders that are competitive across multiple functions and geographies, and push the combined Leaders quadrant market share to 85%. Despite the introduction of new players, the displacement of incumbents is still a significant challenge in the large enterprise market. The biggest impact of the Magic Quadrant Challengers and Visionaries is to push the dominant market players to invest in new features and functionality (sometimes via acquisitions) to stay ahead, and to keep pricing rational. In the less demanding small and midsize market, competition is more intense. A number of Niche Player solutions are dominant in specific regions.

The total EPP revenue of the Magic Quadrant participants at year-end 2011 was roughly $2.8 billion, up 4% from 2010. We attribute this growth primarily to increased buying of more-expensive suites, offset by lower prices for low-end malware-only solutions. Consequently, EPP revenue growth is more a result of an inflow of revenue from other markets. We anticipate that growth will continue to be in the low single digits in 2013.

Microsoft is the best vendor in a position to challenge the incumbent Leaders, primarily due to attractive pricing in its enterprise agreements. Approximately one-third of enterprise buyers1 indicate they are actively considering Microsoft or plan to do so during their next renewal periods. However, Microsoft’s slow development, the lack of a single unified security management interface and mediocre test results will temper its adoption. Longer term, we believe that increased displacement of Windows endpoints with application-controlled OSs (such as Microsoft WinRT and Apple’s iOS and OS X Mountain Lion) is the biggest market threat. These solutions shift the value proposition of EPP solutions from traditional anti-malware to MDM and data protection capabilities.

Magic Quadrant

Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms
Figure 1.Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms

 
 

Source: Gartner (January 2013)

Vendor Strengths and Cautions

Arkoon Network Security

Arkoon Network Security’s StormShield EPP solution (formerly offered by SkyRecon Systems) is designed as a seamless integrated EPP with a focus on behavioral protection. Arkoon’s Ability to Execute score is hampered by its relatively small market share and limited geographic presence, as well as its still-maturing management capabilities….

Continue reading here!

//Richard

Forrester: 84% Of U.S. Adults Now Use The Web Daily, 50% Own Smartphones, Tablet Ownership Doubled To 19% In 2012

January 14, 2013 Leave a comment

Forrester Research just published its annual “State of Consumers and Technology” report. As usual, it’s chock-full of interesting statistics about how U.S. consumers use the Internet, but the most interesting statistic is probably that the overall online penetration rate in the U.S. has stabilized at 79 percent (the same number Forrester found in 2011). That’s the percentage of U.S. adults that go online at least monthly. What has changed, however, is how many adults go online at least daily: In 2011, that was 78 percent of U.S. adults, and in 2012, Forrester reports that 84 percent now go online at least once per day.

One of the reasons for this is, of course, the growing smartphone and tablet penetration. Forrester found that about half of U.S. online adults now own a smartphone and two-thirds even own multiple connected devices. Tablet adoption doubled since 2011 and is now at 19 percent.

forrester_forecast_tech_adoption_2012

One trend that the Forrester report, which includes…

Continue reading here!

//Richard

Fire Your CIO

Ok, yet another interesting article!

The following post is by Mike Abramsky, principal of Red Team Global , which facilitates technology innovation via collaborative workshops and consulting.

Do you stifle productivity – or shoot the CIO?

That’s the dilemma increasingly faced by CEOs. With the rise of tablets, smartphones, social media, apps and personal clouds, we are in the midst of a profound computing shift, perhaps the greatest technology revolution in the enterprise since the invention of the PC. But the IT department with its risk-averse, slow-moving, heavy-handed culture threatens to torpedo hoped-for productivity.

This revolution is more than just technology; some CEOs recognize it as early days of Retooling the Enterprise. The ease of adoption of these new tools means non-technical staff can pursue faster, more flexible”

Continue reading here

//Richard

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