Smartphones a Good Investment for Small Businesses – As a student, I recall watching reruns of “Star Trek” with the other University of California matriculates in my college dormitory, and yes, I was a bit of a geek! Episode after episode, my favorite sentence was, “Kirk to the Enterprise Come in, Enterprise,” and a well-equipped Federation crew would “beam” in with a simple flick of the wrist “Captain Kirk returned to the Enterprise from wherever he had been. Perhaps Gene Roddenberry and the other brains behind the 1960s blockbuster were true technological visionaries.
Consider Captain Kirk communicating with someone on another spaceship, or possibly in another galaxy, through a live link on a large screen display. Is this reminiscent of Cisco TelePresence? What about the electronic “pads” that the yeoman was continuously bringing Captain Kirk to sign? Did Steve Jobs have that idea in mind when he designed the first iPad? The communicator was maybe the most foresighted technology in the program.
Could it be a forerunner to today’s smartphone? Even in his wildest fantasies, I doubt Roddenberry could have predicted the trajectory of today’s cell phones; a gadget sophisticated enough to enable users to play word games with pals while chatting to their mother and browsing a website for a nice location for sushi. Interestingly, both of these marvels were created in Canada.
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The smartphone revolution was, of course, pioneered by Canadian behemoth Research In
Motion (RIM), and I doubt even the company’s corporate strategists could have predicted
how deeply embedded Blackberry would be when it initially reached the market. The phrase “CrackBerry” snidely refers to those who couldn’t be torn from their BlackBerry cellphones even with a crowbar.
RIM benefited greatly from being the first to market, and their legions of devotees who avidly absorbed everything BlackBerry were heralds of a new era of corporate mobility. The days of “out of office” welcomes were limited, as any clever, proactive corporation understood that if they were more available to their clients and prospects, their chances of closing business and providing agile customer service increased dramatically.
In both business and nature, the hunter often becomes the prey. Despite RIM’s stronghold
on the young market, competitors quickly arrived to dethrone the mountaintop monarch.Even PDA manufacturers, such as Palm, Inc., with their Treo devices, joined the game when their products became outmoded. Others with new operating systems, such as the Apple iPhone and the Google-backed Android smartphone, soon followed. Of course, it wouldn’t be a party without Microsoft, which has been attempting to break into the smartphone and mobility markets with Windows Phone for many years.
Despite its lack of features, the Windows Phone was deemed to offer a modest edge in terms of ease of integration into complete Windows-based settings. However, the relative simplicity with which the competitors did the same, as well as lesser Windows Phone feature sets, kept Microsoft on the outside looking in for the most part; until now, that is. Industry observers are keeping a close eye on Windows Phone 8, the next edition of the Windows Phone operating system.
Microsoft has made significant investments in this device, emphasizing the seamless user interface between the phone and the desktop or laptop. Time will tell if this plan is a success or a failure.
Today’s smartphone industry has a myriad of possibilities, making it tough to choose one that is deemed the BEST. In reality, there may not be a single universal answer since the
demands and desires of small and medium-sized businesses vary widely, and there is no
“average” network setup. However, I believe we can all agree that there are several
smartphone feature alternatives available to most SMB enterprises.
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The ability to do business on the go is the most compelling and prevalent reason why small companies consider the smartphone and how it fits into their entire strategy. Enterprise organizations are in the same predicament, but SMBs may have greater agility and flexibility in their business strategy to adapt to a transition like this.
Small businesses and single proprietors are increasingly making use of the power of smartphones paired with cloud solutions that reduce the need for an onsite server and suite of programs. Users may have all of their organizational information, email, databases, intranet, voice, and IM communications managed in the cloud and available anywhere on their smartphone device of choice, thanks to solutions like Microsoft’s Office 365.
This sort of arrangement and smartphone integration is ideal for organizations with a tiny
office or a home office, but it might also be ideal for firms trying to minimize expenses and
avoid reinvesting in costly gear, software, and employees to support it. However, there are
several risks associated with security and device access.
In terms of the former, the simplicity of connectivity for a rising variety of smartphone
possibilities has the potential for the security breach. What happens if the gadget is
misplaced or stolen? What if an employee transfers to competition but steals important
customer information before leaving? What if the device’s Internet connection is
compromised, allowing a malicious outsider access to your internal network? These are all
important considerations.
Most cell phones can only connect to the network over a secure connection, such as a Virtual Private Network (VPN) tunnel. These tunnels are a clientless variant known as SSL, which is a browser-based connection that uses Internet Explorer’s secure sockets layer. In other words, it’s not like the traditional VPN connection, which needed a client to be downloaded, maintained, and accessible exclusively from the system on which it was installed. The clientless SSL version is accessible from any compatible browser, including airport or hotel kiosks.
Because most workers choose to work in a BYOD (bring your own device) environment, it is
critical to understand how cell phones may access the network safely and securely. These
situations are playing out at every level of organization size, yet the security risks described above persist. How do you cope with the multiplicity of devices that connect to the network? I’m sorry to introduce another term, but Mobile Device Management (MDM) might be the key to unlocking that mystery.
MDM providers, whether cloud-based or on-premise, enable enterprises to securely manage both company-owned and employee-owned devices. With federal rules changing all the time, these MDM solutions may assist give verifying that the entity’s data is safe and secure. They can even trace the device’s position and, if it is lost or stolen, provide an administrator the power to remotely lock it down or wipe it clean of any corporate data. When dealing with employee-owned devices, this becomes more difficult, however, some MDM suites allow for the removal of just business data, keeping images of your darling puppy or adorable niece untouched.
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So the SMB audience has a lot of alternatives and choices when it comes to smartphones.
There are too many options and too many different requirements and desires for me to
advocate or point to any one gadget. Regardless of the approach, the requirement for
security and management must be overlooked.
It is critical to do a comprehensive assessment of your demands and how your budget can manage all of the major parts of the solution. A smartphone is an important business tool for many users, but I frequently wonder what they will look like in the future. I’d be happy if, like the food replicators in the Star Trek world, future gadgets could materialize an excellent cup of coffee for me! Live long and prosper while remaining mobile!
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