SOA Advisor
The Mobility Fix
Look to 2008 to be the year that enterprise mobility finally gets some legs.
- By Dana Gardner
- 11/01/2007
A logjam exists between developers and their ability to productively deliver enterprise applications and data to mobile devices, such as cell phones, PDAs and so-called converged devices like the Apple iPhone.
The underlying problem? Developers face an obstacle course of complexity and way too many variables. To develop applications that reach even a small number of major handset environments means big-time custom plumbing, from the various data sources, to the mixture of networks, to the choices on synchronization, to the various security needs, to the many user interfaces and client operating systems. Managing all these variables requires a high degree of skill across many different disciplines. There aren't many developers that can pull this off in an average enterprise.
Not Worth the Trouble
The result of all this is that a lot of time and money must be spent just to bring a few basic applications to a few basic mobile clients. No wonder enterprise mobility stubbornly remains below the radar for IT leadership. Mobile remains relegated to the crowded back burner of IT imperatives.
And given all the variables and the high degree of required customization, few ISVs have emerged to try and make a living at producing mass-market mobile applications. The subsequent lack of killer applications, other than standards-based e-mail and messaging, reduces the appetite to take on the infrastructure complexity. It's just not yet worth the trouble to bring the corporate datacenter out to mobile clients across commercial networks.
Adding to the complexity is the regulatory diversity across geographic regions. It's nearly impossible to envision the global approach to mobile wireless computing that we've seen for desktop and Web computing. Designing for one mobile market doesn't give you much of a leg-up in reaching many others.
IT departments can take the "inclusive platform" approach, dictating the exact device and/or runtime environment up and down the stack. But this approach is stifling, and often loses the ability to take advantage of low-cost devices and services available via commercial mobile-service carriers. What's more, aligning the back-end and front-end infrastructure typically does little to align with the operations of mobile telecommunications carriers and handset operators. These vendors don't like the idea of losing control of what their clients do on their networks.
Clearly, wireless handheld delivery of enterprise data and applications has yet to reach its untapped and vast potential.
Apple Opens the Door
Microsoft for years has been grappling with these issues, with many fits and starts. There have been some impressive successes with Windows Mobile, but Microsoft has by no means sewn up the field of mobile enterprise application design and delivery. The Windows Mobile strategy has not yet achieved a critical mass with business applications and data, and it's likely that today's widely heterogeneous environment for end points and devices will be with us -- at least in the United States -- for a long time to come.
These seemingly intractable roadblocks to wider mobile business use are one reason we're seeing what amounts to appliances for the client devices. The Apple iPhone, which launched with great fanfare in late June, is a prime example. Apple fused hardware, software and applications -- as well as a few critical APIs -- and picked one carrier (AT&T) for wide-area connectivity. That combination of attributes, along with the promise of more APIs, makes the converged device/appliance approach more than a consumer affair -- it begins to reduce the complexity for enterprise mobility too.
Microsoft in July said that it likes the idea of fused mobile clients -- the appliance on the client -- so much that it has hinted it will produce such integrated devices, too. Rumors persist that Google also has its sights on a mobile handheld appliance of some sort. Things are clearly heating up.
These nifty clients should go quite a way to making enterprise mobility far easier, by allowing developers to exploit them with fewer interface and connectivity variables. But the converged client still needs a back-end or middleware counterpart to help coordinate an enterprise's data, logic and security needs. Sybase is hard at work on what may prove to be a game changer for such enterprise mobility middleware -- especially when coupled with a converged device such as the iPhone.
Sybase has bet its future growth on mobility. And while the Dublin, Calif., company has not yet announced the details of its full stack, the Sybase vision makes a lot of sense. Expect in the next year to see what amounts to a distributed middleware system approach to enterprise mobility from Sybase. The strategy could break the current logjam in enterprise mobile development and deployment. If Sybase can shake up the enterprise mobility infrastructure industry -- and partner effectively with the likes of Apple's iPhone -- then Microsoft's response will need to be swift and significant.
Dare I say it? What the heck: Look to 2008 to be the year that enterprise mobility finally gets some legs.
About the Author
Dana Gardner is president and principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions, an enterprise IT analysis, market research and consulting firm. Gardner tracks and analyzes Web services, application-development tools and application optimization techniques. He is also the producer of the podcast series, BriefingsDirect.