Enterprise mobility is now an integral part of any company strategy and it aims to enhance employee productivity, while simultaneously reducing operating costs to strengthen the bottom line of the company. However, most talk about such issues often ends up becoming an exchange of technical jargon, which is often difficult to understand for many decision makers. It is thus important to discuss some of the key terms currently associated with enterprise mobility solutions and this article attempts to develop an understanding of some of the key terms.
Mobility Policy
From an enterprise perspective, mobility policy covers the entire gamut of rules and policies, which are enforced by an organization to ensure proper usage of mobility devices in the enterprise. The mobility policy of an enterprise commonly includes guidelines for proper usage of mobility devices when connected to the company network or when connected to any other network. The mobility device usage policy of a company may specify or restrict the use of certain applications in order to facilitate the company’s work. Additional aspects of the mobility policy may include either complete or partial reimbursements for mobility devices such as tablets, smart phones and net books bought by the employees themselves and/or restrictions on use of company-provided mobility devices for usage other than work-related usage.
MEAP (Mobile Enterprise Application Platforms)
Mobile Enterprise Application Platforms (MEAP) refers to the entire suite of products and services, which play a key role in the development of various mobile applications. The term was first used in a Gartner Magic Quadrant report published in the year 2008. MEAP was initially a replacement for the phrase “multi channel access gateway market”. The MEAP approach is capable of supporting multiple mobility devices and platforms on an organization’s network and helps in future-proofing a company’s network to ensure long-term mobility support. MEAP solutions are ideal for companies seeking to implement the use of multiple mobility devices with a long-term future perspective. Key benefits of the approach include availability of high level programming languages and easy development templates which simplify as well as expedite the mobile application development process and ensure a shorter learning curve for the overall development process. Leading players in the MEAP market include Sybase Unwired Platform, IBM Worklight, Apple and Syclo.
MADP (Mobile Application Development Platforms)
MADP (Mobile Application Development Platform) refers to any of the OS, such as BlackBerry OS, Android OS, iPhone OS/iOS/Mac OS, Symbian OS, Windows Mobile OS etc., which are capable of supporting the development of apps designed for use in mobility devices with a small footprint such as tablets, smart phones etc. MADP is a more generic approach to the earlier discussed MEAP and also supports the development of apps, which are not designed for use on an enterprise network.
Container Techniques
Container techniques are a relatively new addition to the world of enterprise mobility and such techniques emerged mainly after the mass-scale introduction of BYOD policies on the enterprise scene. All container techniques attempt to separate the personal use apps on a mobility device from the apps for work-related use on the enterprise platform. Container techniques also ensure that business data is kept separate and protected from the user’s personal data to ensure compliance with all data security guidelines currently enforced by the organization. Currently available container techniques also provide additional security to corporate data by supporting remote wipe, secure log on, encryption, identity management etc. Many offshore software development centers based in India are current engaged in developing software, which are targeted at implementing and maintaining a wide variety of container techniques.
Virtualization
Enterprise virtualization developed from the aim of enterprise IT departments to improve scalability of the enterprise network by improving overall utilization of available hardware resources. Virtualization enables multiple OS to operate in parallel on a single CPU and helps decrease the overhead costs of using such as system. Virtualization is however different from multitasking, as multitasking involves the operating of multiple programs on the same OS. From an enterprise mobility point of view, virtualization allows organizations to support multiple mobility devices as well as multiple mobility platforms by leveraging the company’s current mobility infrastructure. Virtualization thus helps companies decrease the overall costs of implementing an enterprise-wise mobility strategy.
