The next great battle in the cellphone wars is coming with this month’s release of the Apple iPhone 3G and the Palm Pre. This devices are more than just cellphones, more than just smartphones; they are truly handheld platforms that have enough processing power and memory to start emulating heavy clients.
And that’s potentially a huge security problem for enterprises and, perhaps, a big opportunity for solution providers.
In the Channel Insider 2009 Market Pulse survey, solution providers reported that the product in highest demand is smartphones. That may come as a surprise to some that businesses would be asking their PC and server guys for iPhones and Blackberries, but it makes perfect sense if you consider the adoption trend.
Just five years ago, only a privileged few in the enterprise had an email capable device such as a Blackberry. The devices were expensive and limited in functionality. Today, smartphones and email and Web-enabled devices are ubiquitous. Not only has it become a business imperative to have these devices, enterprise are being called upon the support user-owned phones. That’s a management and policy headache. The answer is increasingly outsourcing implementation, support and management.