Enterprise Mobility: The Past, Present, and Future

Technology has transformed drastically and became a part of our everyday lives. Mobility? It has transformed at a rapid rate in just 5-7 years.

I was attending a Google Partner event just yesterday and they were sharing with us in regards to the transformation of technology as a whole. It is very important for anybody to be able to keep up with the technological trend, especially when it has pretty much taken over our lives.

I've done several research on each technological era and how it benefited Enterprises. Let's begin the journey, shall we? It will be brief, I promise.

Mainframe/Mini Era (1960s)

I wasn't fortunate enough to be born in the 1960s'. However, a brief Google search practically sums up on how Mainframe Era benefited humanity. In fact, I came across an article which says mainframes are still pretty relevant today because of the Cloud.

Traditionally, and even today, mainframes take up a lot of space. That is why it is really expensive to invest in.

I believe that mainframe era taught us to think simple, especially for programmers. The KISS principle, known as "Keep It Simple, Stupid", is still a useful principle for programming. Why I say that? Mainframe developers are taught to follow workflow processes in order to build a successful application. Because of this tedious process, you have to keep the process simple.

PC Era (1980s)

Here comes the boom of IBM, Apple and Microsoft etc. The PC era was huge, because for the first time ever, computers are affordable to people. This improved our work productivity, moving operations to digital, even though we went through Command Line Interface (CLI) till Steve Jobs and Bill Gates introduced Macintosh and Windows respectively, where the Graphical User Interface (GUI) surfaced to ease IT users and consumers in their daily activities.

Internet Era (1990s)

Internet was used by the military to transmit top secret code. Then came the revolution in late 80s' and early 90s' where it was introduced to consumers via electronic mail, World Wide Web (WWW) etc.

You have to agree with me, the Internet has impacted our everyday lives. It has feed us with so many information via different means; be it personal computers, smartphones, smartwatch, household appliances etc. That's where the Internet of Things (IoT) has been the up-and-coming trend for IT. I'll cover IoT in my next portion.

Mobile Era (2000s)

Mobile phones were one of the game changers in communication. The early days when Motorola and Nokia were one of the few leaders in device manufacturing, it is a simple and straightforward device, you make and receive calls. Then it evolves into text messaging, MMS, web browsing, instant messaging and the list goes on. Then we have tablets coming into the picture to enhance work productivity even more.

Our smartphones are our life, if we step out of the house, and forgot to bring our phones along, then we will turn back to get it. That is how important smartphones are these days. Another little experiment, just go to any restaurant, take a look at the tables around you, who isn't on their smartphone?

I have fear that smartphones will take over our social life one day (or even rule us just like Terminators).

The present day Enterprise Mobility, an inspirational article entitled "Mobile and the IT Time Machine" written by Vittorio Viarengo, MobileIron's VP of Product and Marketing. He gently wrote how he wish he could travel 5 years back in time to embrace the Internet Revolution in 1995 if he were to know that Internet is huge in any enterprise today. Then of course, he shared his experiences in the IT business and how enterprises should prepare their mobility strategy for the next 5 years.

Mobility can be in many forms, ruggedized, smartphones, tablets, household appliances, smartwatch etc. As long as it is accessible via a portable device or you could carry around easily, then it is mobile, or should I say, mobile-friendly. We just saw Amazon released the Amazon Echo, latest cloud-powered external speaker, which was pretty cool. I do wish they could learn their lessons from the Amazon Fire Phone and market the Echo properly.

Who would have thought that mobility could become such an important and powerful element in enterprise today? If you ask any organization 5 years ago that everyone will go mobile in their daily operational activities, then I'm sure you would be laughed at. But it is true, the truth hurts.

Microsoft just announced the Office365 is free for iPhones, iPads and Android (http://for.tn/1qtHawa). Another move which I strongly support Satya Nadella in his attempt to further establish Microsoft's mobility landscape. Enterprises would love this! I mean, who wouldn't? Get an iPad, which costs far lesser than a laptop, and equip it with Microsoft Office365. You would save a lot of money. I meant a lot! Bad news for those who have purchases previously though.

Mobility is huge today for enterprises!

So what's in it for the future? Who knows! It could even happen tomorrow. The transformation is so fast that we cannot even predict what would happen. Mobility may transform into you, probably wearing a mini device, and able to communicate to people easily with the functionality of all the smart devices into just one super gadget. Or maybe hologram? No one knows what would happen.

But you can prepare for it.

As advised by Vittorio in his article, he pointed out key transformation plan for any organization in the next 5 years for mobility strategy:
1. Build a Mobile IT Centre of Excellence
2. Hire Mobile App Developers
3. Re-implement Business Processes as Mobile Apps
4. Embrace the New Mobile Security and Management Paradigm

Just follow the above, and you will be moving in par with the mobile transformation.

Start building your organizations into a Mobile First organization today!

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A Tribute to Nokia

Hi peeps, as you may known that Microsoft will be dropping the Nokia brand in the future products. Thus making it Microsoft Lumia. A move that I've expected it to happen ever since the billion dollar acquisition in 2013.

Nokia is definitely nostalgic to me. In fact, most of our first mobile phone is a Nokia. So, to us, Microsoft losing the Nokia brand does impact us in many ways.

Here are my top 5 moments of being a Nokia owner:

1. Indestructible

We tweeted about it, covered many memes on 9GAG, we lived the moment. To me, Nokia still manufactures the most indestructible line of mobile phones. The Nokia 3310 is a beast. It even survived the sledgehammer test conducted by GizmoSlip.



Some fans made a short story based on the Nokia 3310 and posted on 9GAG recently. Pretty cool indeed.

It was even featured in the recent Hong Kong pro-democracy protest, where, unfortunately, the Nokia 3310 "sacrificed" itself. My amazement is it actually withheld a tear gas bullet. No kidding. See the pictures on Lockerdome.

2. Our first few Nokia phones

Nokia doesn't have fancy names like iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, OnePlus One etc. They named their mobile phones by numbers. And we pretty much still remember the phone model that we once owned.

 




I used to have a Nokia 8210, Nokia 3200 and Nokia N900. And yes, these phones, not as indestructible as the 3310, but still fairly solid. Used to drop on the floor multiple times and don't feel much pain or worry that the screen will crack.

3. Our classic games

No one owns a Nokia without playing their games. Snake is a classic. If you own a Nokia, then probably you've competed with each other on your high score.


Oh, and there's Bounce! They later released a 3D version, but that isn't as fun as the original.

4. Speed Texting (with or without looking at the screen)

I used to be able to text without looking at the screen while driving. Come to think of it, it's rather dangerous. So anyway, basically most of us are so comfortable with feeling the keypad while texting, that we aren't really used to it when the touch revolution comes to mobile devices.

Some of us even mastered the art of texting, we could type so many words in just a second!

5. Nokia's Opening Ringtone

How can you forget Nokia's opening ringtone?



As a conclusion, Nokia will always be in our hearts. Here's my tribute to Nokia, a brand which does connect people.

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Windows 10: The Next Generation Microsoft OS

Forget about Windows 9. Microsoft will be launching the Windows 10 instead. Not sure what is the reason behind the naming convention, maybe it's because it was initially leaked by Microsoft China's social media page. If you have forgotten about that news due to the iPhone and iOS8 hype, then please read the accidental leak in The Verge.

Microsoft is moving forward in the Mobile First era by ensuring its new platform will run across all of its Windows devices. Satya Nadella has already pointed out early of the year that he will focus on Cloud and Mobile as his direction for the company.

Windows Phone has been running in the shadows of iOS and Android, but analysts and my encounters with various enterprise clients, it seems like Windows Phone could be the next big thing especially when my clients are moving forward to Office365 and Microsoft Azure.

The UI for Windows 10 is rather simple and familiar with the ones on Windows 8. So, users would not have to learn all over again. And for modern apps meant for touch behaviour, it will be a hybrid model where devices which still rely on mouse and keyboard UI, will still experience the same behaviour as the ones on touch. This is rather essential for user friendliness. And hey, our familiar, "Start Menu" is back on Windows 10!

More details, you can read from the article on TechSpot.

So, are you excited for what Microsoft has in store for us? I am looking forward to how Microsoft is going to make their platform enterprise ready as I am seeing a large activity among most EMM players working hand-in-hand with Windows Phone platform.

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OneDrive Special Promotion and Helbreath

 About two days ago, Microsoft has decided to offer a rather attractive promotion to all smartphone/tablet users. What's that offer? Free 30GB of hard drive space. That's another 15GB than the original which they usually offer. Better grab yours now before the end of September 2014! You may read more in Mashable: http://mashable.com/2014/09/20/onedrive-ios8-promotion/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-tech-link

So I've decided to try it by downloading the app into my phone. You need a Microsoft account, else just register for a new one.

The moment I launched the app, I was really excited. Not because I have 30GB of disk space to play around with, but Microsoft actually kept my Helbreath pictures (if you're not sure what Helbreath is, it is one of the coolest MMORPG in the early 2000s).

Back in my early gaming days. Gosh! Nostalgic much? Here are some of the pictures which I've "slayed" the enemy in PVP.



 Pretty awesome game indeed. Please feel free to comment if you have played Helbreath before. :)

So yeah, grab this opportunity to get the OneDrive. It works like the Dropbox, so at least you have two options to store your files. :)

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