Mobile is one of the fastest growing segments within portals, social software, and collaboration. Chris Pepin, IBM Mobile Technology Evangelist, presented at Lotusphere and provided some great insight into IBM’s direction in the mobile space, in particular how IBM leverages the technology internally. Here are some of the most interesting highlights.
Mobile Marketplace Statistics and projections
- Citibank: Smartphone sales grew 53% in 2010 and projects 2011 growth of 29%
- Google: 300k Android phones activated each day
- IDC: 17 million tablets shipped in 2010 (led by iPad)
- Forester: Over 82 million tablet users by 2015
- Gartner: By 2014 90 of organizations will support personal mobile devices
IBM has a “Bring your own device” Policy
This is based on the tenet that mobility in the workplace is the ability to work securely, anywhere, anytime from any device.
- Employees have the option of using a personal laptop, smartphone, or tablet for business purpose subject to security requirements.
- Primary mobile devices are Apple, Google Android, BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Mobile
- IT provides services and support to corporate systems for personal devices.
Key Mobile Technologies:
Hardware
- More powerful, dual-core processors
- front and rear facing cameras
- High resolution
Network
- 4G, LTE, WiMAX, HSPA+ provide high speed wireless connectivity
Femtocel and microcel
- Small cellular base stations that connect to a carier via broadband
- Improves coverage in low signal areas
Security Best Practices
- 8 character passwords which expire each 90 days and locks after 30 minutes.
- Devices can be wiped remotely or after 10 invalid password attempts.
- On device data encryption for confidential information.
Lotus Notes Access
BlackBerry
- Automatic, two-way over the air synchronization of Notes email, calendar, and contacts
- Enterprise security
- Mobile Device Management (MDM) capabilities
Lotus Traveler
- Provides access to Notes for Apple iOS, Google Android, Nokia Symbian, and Windows Mobile
Lotus iNotes
- Web based email
- Integrates with Domino
- Includes 3 flavors: full, lite, and ultra-light
- Supports smart phones and tablets
These types of mobile applications are in use at IBM
- Web based.
- Native.
- Hybrid (native applications which implement web based as well.)
- Virtual applications.
- Off the shelf.
- Custom written ones.
- WhirlWind application store (IBM’s internal app store.)
IBM Technology Adoption Program
Overview and Objectives
- Internal program to leverage emerging technology.
- Brings together collaboration, iterative development, and emerging technologies.
- Technology is tested under real-world conditions.
- Mobility is a major focus.
Key Leanings
- Employees want a single device for both business and personal use.
- Separation of personal and corporate data is a challenge. Wiping a personal device is not popular.
- Devices passcode locks are unpopular but necessary. Biometrics may be a future alternative.
- There is a business need to provide mobile services to reduce unsafe practices. People naturally take the path of least resistance.
- Browser-based cloud solutions provide flexibility, reduce device dependency, and can help address security concerns.
- Choices lead to questions, so you need to be able to provide the right information to people to make informed decisions.
- Enterprise capabilities lag in a consumer driven market so meeting expectations can be challenging.
- Use SSL VPN for e-mail and a separate VPN for general access.
- Carrier actions in different countries impact enterprise deployments.
The idea that personal and business devices are going to be same is a huge problem in the US due to the federal rules for civil procedure and ediscovery. The slippery slope of comingling personal and business data on one device, when the lawyers come calling for litigation and discovery, means the device will have to be surrendered for preservation and collection of ESI. Employers and employees will find themselves in further litigation between themselves to induce the surrender of devices and/or to prevent the surrender of devices, to protect business data from being disclosed in the context of, for example personal litigation (ie divorce etc) or from personal data from being disclosed (infidelity, inappropriate behavior, conflicts of interest etc) in the context of corporate litigation. People behave quite differently with personal data vs corporate data, and the idea of disclosure of personal behavior to your employer creates a mountain of easy-to-predict struggles to resist things like that.
Also there are cost factors of the act of ediscovery– $5600 per GB for legal review as estimated by some in the industry–that would add to the costs for businesses/persons when more data (personal or business) are comingled on devices. So the opposing counsel would be perfectly allowed to require someone review your 30GB of personal email, files, etc as part of a corporate ediscovery mandate, when they may in fact have nothing to do with the legal matter at hand.
Personal data can, and has, influenced the perceived and actual credibility of an employee in a corporate litigation context. Think of employees involved in a corporate lawsuit who are found to have inappropriate personal materiel on their shared personal/business device (racial, sexual, gender, jokes) and the company trying to assert that the things that person may testify to are credible, say for example in an employment matter alleging discrimination, sexual harrassment, geneder bias etc.
Gartner and others thinking things like that are going to simply evaporate and companies are going to be dumb enough to allow these sets of problems, by design, are ignorant of the challenges with the FRCP and ediscovery in the US.
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