The Mobile Operating System Wars Revisited

The battle for your pocket has some new entrants, and the winner in the enterprise market won't be BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone OS, Symbian, Palm OS, Android, or even webOS; it'll be you, the individual. Enterprises are headed in the direction of embracing multiple mobile operating systems (OSes) and giving individuals the freedom to choose the platform that's best for them. With this continued shift to Web-based applications, maybe in a couple of years we'll eventually see standards on the browser. Or maybe virtualization will hit handhelds and eventually solve the management conundrum. While speculation is an interesting exercise in futility, IT managers facing tough decisions today on which platforms to officially support should narrow their focus on the top three: BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and iPhone OS. And over the long term, evaluate device-agnostic mobile device management and security solutions so that you have the flexibility to add or drop support for various platforms, or consider turning to managed mobility services so that you can free your IT operations team to focus on more strategic projects.