Market Overview: Smartphone Management

Within the next 12 to 18 months, most IT managers worldwide will significantly alter their client computing strategies, and this will have a profound impact on smartphone adoption and management. Necessitating this change is a significant generational shift of information workers — who are an increasingly empowered group — dictating the technology used to solve business issues. I&O managers must respond to overwhelming requests to support smartphones because of the productivity improvements and TCO efficiencies they introduce. But these IT managers are shifting away from a one-size-fits-all, corporate-liable smartphone model to one that: 1) includes support for at least BlackBerry, iOS, and Android, and 2) is much more open to individually liable devices connecting to corporate resources. This architectural shift will force IT and telecom managers to reevaluate their smartphone management solutions and services.