Mobility checklistChances are, if IT departments could choose, mobile devices would never appear on a corporate purchase order. Mobile devices are light and portable, so they get dropped and lost. They communicate wirelessly, so they increase an organisation's security risk. They require extra accessories - PC cards, chargers, cradles, and so on - sometimes in duplicate. And they seem to become obsolete twice as fast as desktop computers. But IT managers weren't thrilled about PCs when they first appeared, and you know how that battle turned out. Mobile devices - smartphones, laptops, and personal digital assistants (PDAs) - offer the same advantages that PCs offered 20 years ago: They bring computing power to where people actually do their work. To read more about business value from mobility, see How to build a mobility business case. Regardless of your opinion about the explosion of mobile tools, if you are an IT manager, you should compile a mobility checklist. The goal: to ensure that mobile devices actually deliver the productivity that they promise without compromising the corporate infrastructure. According to experts, here are eight items to start your list. 1. Get management authorisation. Because of cost and security issues, don't let users bring any mobile device into the company and expect IT to support it. Make sure management clearly determines the device's cost-benefit value to the organization. This is especially important with wireless devices - network consultants note that it's so easy to set up a wireless access point, some office workers do it on their own. 2. Understand users' constraints while mobile. As part of your return on investment research, conduct an in-depth survey of user requirements. For instance, if people need continual and highly reliable connectivity, choose broadband. For occasional access, a less expensive modem might suffice. Find out where employees will most often use the device. For example, if it's a client's office, a laptop is likely adequate, but if it's in their car, a smaller handheld is better. Whether their communication needs are more voice-intensive or data-intensive will also determine if they should use a mobile phone, PDA, or a smartphone. 3. Understand technology constraints on the road. Once you've determined employees' needs, look at the devices themselves. Because wireless devices consume battery power, you might want to add an extra battery for a device outfitted with broadband. If warehouse workers are carrying PDAs for inventory management, consider that few of these devices would survive a drop onto a concrete floor; you will likely want to purchase durable versions. If employees don't return to a central office every day, you might also invest in extra charging cradles for them to use at home. Then there's the variable nature of wireless access. Determine what carriers offer the best coverage in the areas your employees work most, and what access options - wireless local area network, broadband, cellular modem - are most viable. 4. Standardise devices. Depending on how many departments need mobile devices, you might not be able to standardise on a single device. That's not necessarily wise anyway, because changing product features and release cycles means you might not be able to replace one device with an identical device six months after the initial purchase. However, if you commit to a single vendor, typically you can negotiate a volume discount based on purchases over time. Provide employees with a choice of no more than three devices, considering variable needs such as screen size, battery time, and memory capacity. Without such limits, experts warn, you'll have a tough time supporting any of the devices effectively. Also, the more sophisticated a device, the more support issues you will encounter. 5. Establish contingency plans for security. As a precaution, it's a good idea to encrypt certain business-sensitive drives or folders on laptops as well as portable "thumb drives." If possible, add what's known as a "kill" capability: an automated security feature that erases a mobile device's hard drive and memory when it attempts to access your corporate system after it has been lost or stolen (you may perform this using Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 or Exchange Server 2003 SP2). Experts also suggest configuring building-access cards to serve as laptop-access cards requiring passwords. By doing this, no one can access the computer without the card and the appropriate credentials. 6. Data access and integration. If a mobile application requires access to corporate systems, conduct a rigorous analysis of how frequently users will access these systems and what kind of performance degradation they'll experience both on the server and on the mobile device. If you set up a separate system for data access, it could update the primary database over a higher-speed connection. This way, increased traffic from remote wireless users (who might be exchanging information at slower data speeds) won't necessarily impact the performance of the corporate server, whether for internal users or for other remote users. This is especially important for e-mail exchange; if you add multiple mobile users to your Microsoft Exchange server, confirm that it can accommodate the increased usage. 7. Mobile application development. Anyone who's survived the initial pain of early wireless application development efforts can tell you how tough it is to format data onto small device screens and handle exceedingly slow data transfer protocols. Today, developing custom applications for mobile devices is easier due to wireless XML and development tools such as the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework, which enables developers to create Microsoft .NET-compliant applications for mobile devices. 8. Remote support. Because they are mobile, you will find yourself having to support devices that aren't in front of you. In field sales, field support, and warehouse deployments, you might also support employees with less computing background and experience than the typical office worker. You might want to designate one or two IT employees as the primary source for remote-support issues. Because remote workers sometimes travel at odd hours, you might also download basic troubleshooting tips onto the devices (or have them available through an automated phone support system). Don't conclude that mobile devices are an onerous imposition on IT. In fact, given how frequently IT employees are away from their desks helping users, they'll grow to love their own mobile flexibility. But it's important to set boundaries on the rest of the organization to continue to serve and support its mobile strategy.
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