Post-PC Strategy The Storm Before The Calm

Transcription

1 Post-PC Strategy The Storm Before The Calm

2 CIOs currently face great upheaval regarding the hardware they deploy to employees. A generation ago, they had to determine whether applications were best run on mainframes, minicomputers, or PCs connected through local-area networks. But each of those required significant financial investment, and the decision was not complicated by employees clamoring for the technologies they wanted. 1

3 What is different about today is that, for the first time, employees are making demands about the technology they use. Smartphones and tablets have evolved from consumer toys to corporate tools. And in many cases, even without corporate IT permission, employees are going ahead and buying those tools themselves. Business users have turned the tables on IT. For years, IT evaluated new tools and technologies and deployed them to serve users needs, only to have those users often balk at shifting from time-tested processes to new, unfamiliar technologies. In the past, IT has faced challenges with large enterprise deployments, but now with mobile technology employees have found technology that they actually love to use and that they are demanding to use at work. Having grown accustomed to consumer-based mobile technology and applications that work more intuitively and quickly, employees want corporate applications that behave in the same way. That is consumerization at its most challenging for IT it is not just the plethora of mobile devices, but the ease with which employees have mastered them. Perhaps for the first time, employee expectations (though not necessarily their understanding of what is required) is actually ahead of IT. Unfortunately, there is still a disconnect between what employees want and what IT needs. Employees want advanced mobile devices, but IT prefers devices that meet functional requirements, and are more secure and manageable if they connect to back-end databases, data centers and servers. Companies are also focused on budgetary implications of mobile technology. Currently, most enterprises pay for corporate laptops and some subsidize smartphones for their employees. It is unlikely they will subsidize or support yet another device (nor would IT appreciate having to support another one). But as the capabilities of tablets and laptops converge, how will enterprises determine what to purchase and deploy to employees? Is there a valid business case in switching from corporate issued laptops to converged laptop/ tablet devices? How does the bring-your-owndevice (BYOD) phenomenon or creative subsidy models that many organizations are evaluating impact that business case? Tablets are becoming as powerful as laptops, just as laptops became as powerful as desktops, just as desktops became as powerful as minicomputers. But this is not the same transition as replacing a desktop with a laptop. The operating systems are different. The processors are different. The applications are different. The system management demands are different. Left to mediate among the demands of the enterprise and those of the employees, CIOs face a chaotic and confusing time. We are heading into a post-pc world that, in the words of the late Steve Jobs, will involve unease and discomfort. When Jobs was asked at the All Things Digital conference on June 1, 2010 if tablets like his company s ipad would replace PCs, he struggled to find an analogous situation, but ultimately reached back to an old comparison. When agriculture was the primary industry, he said, most vehicles were trucks. But eventually they were replaced by cars. In the near future, PCs would still be around, he acknowledged, but PCs are going to be like trucks. Less people will need them. 1 As a result, Jobs continued, This transformation is going to make some people uneasy because the PC has taken us a long way. We ve embarked on that change. We like to talk about the post-pc era, but when it really starts to happen, it s uncomfortable. 2 2

4 More Confusion in the Marketplace One element of this discomfort is a mobile vendor landscape in turmoil. There are no clear winners in the mobile marketplace upon which to standardize. Apple With its ipad and iphone juggernauts, Apple appears to be a putative winner. But while many clearly clamor for its high-end hardware, price-conscious consumers in parts of the world are less enthusiastic. Also, its consumer-oriented mindset has, at times, been challenging for IT. The future of these devices in the enterprise hinges on both business users ability to consume and create work content on them and IT s ability to secure, manage and support them. Google Android powers hundreds of millions of mobile devices and claims the largest installed base of any mobile platform. However, all the variations of Android devices by different manufacturers, along with further customizations from carriers, makes it difficult for IT to rally around a common standard for security, support and management. Microsoft Even the secure position of Microsoft Windows in the enterprise has not extended Microsoft s hegemony in the mobile space. Are its Surface tablets a game-changer? It is a big gamble, riding on the success of Microsoft Windows 8 s theme of consistency across screens. Interestingly, Microsoft is not fighting the post-pc era, but rather embracing it. Between its Surface tablet devices and the way in which Windows 8 s touch interface paradigm facilitates the convergence of laptops and tablets, Microsoft seems to be openly ushering in this new era. It has even cross-licensed Apple s interactive interface technology, so that anyone who moves from an ipad to a Surface will navigate applications with the same swipe, pinch and tap gestures. Depending on how enterprises adopt and support Windows 8, Microsoft has a real opportunity to converge consumer and enterprise in that regard. BlackBerry For years, BlackBerry was an enterprise stalwart, well-known and nicknamed for its addictive tendencies. Almost inexplicably, at a time when mobile security presents a barricade to adoption, the mobile device with built-in security has been shunted aside in favor of snappier designs. However, BlackBerry is not standing pat and is deploying a new OS and device. PC and Processor Manufacturers As the PC market matured, the economic rule of three took over, leaving a trio of heavyweight manufacturers at the top of the heap and some second-tier manufacturers hovering to keep prices down and choices up. But now they face an onslaught of new competitors, from heavyweight Samsung to mass-marketer Amazon and retailer Barnes & Noble. Nor does Intel rule in the tablet world, with many devices running on a competitive ARM processor. The turmoil and uncertainty on the hardware front underscores a bigger problem for IT, one that employees rarely think about. IT is the department responsible for securing and managing technology while making everything work together, utilizing management, monitoring, security, application development, and other disciplines. Far different than the PC era, CIOs must now deal with significantly more incompatibility and lack of interoperability. 3

5 Four Tips for Accommodating Mobility Now So how can IT commit to supporting mobility without a clear path to manageability? How can it be proactive about the shift in order to help achieve the goals of the enterprise: a highly responsive workforce, liberated to work and be more productive whenever it s necessary in order to achieve a more competitive edge. Here are four tips: 1. Create and Implement a Mobile Strategy 2. Make Consumerization Your Friend 3. Shift from Applications to Apps 4. Establish Process and Organizational Governance This strategy should address key questions around the business case for mobile, BYOD versus corporate devices, mobile device management systems, network connectivity, mobile security, workplace and collaboration, mobile application development standards, legal and personnel policy, and operations and support requirements. All these factors should combine to drive specific device platform decisions and directions. There is nothing wrong in developing enterprise mobile applications that are simple, intuitive, easy-to-use, and in demand by employees. There is a reason why tablets are so popular. Harness the enthusiasm that employees have for mobile devices, and the free training that they are getting on their own time, to create applications that can make them more productive at their jobs. It is time to rethink how users are going to be accessing information. The days of a multi-screen application with a multitude of drop-down menus which were, admittedly, a clear advancement in simplicity over command-line interfaces are over. It is not just a question of simplicity; it is a question of both screen real-estate and performance. Tablet screens may not be big enough to accommodate a multitude of drop-down menus and electronic forms. Focus on widgets: simple, clean, minimally purposed actions based on what users need while mobile. Extend the rules about security and data access to the mobile realm. This spans everything from who gets what kind of devices to who gets which applications to what data they can access. Some elements of this new world are not different. Data still has to be protected, and IT still has a role in developing the guidelines to do so. Those requirements need to be forged together with the more consumer technology-driven platform roadmap. 4

6 Next Steps: Preparing for the Future There will be calm after the storm, and here is why: although it is not as simple a swap as laptops were for desktops, tablets will eventually converge with laptops. Just as laptops today employ docking stations and external peripherals to accommodate deskbound usage, so too will tablets. The additional touch-screen capability may be delayed by the need to refresh monitors, but remember how quickly CRTs were replaced by flat screens when the latter become less expensive. the vendor landscape will have produced some clarity around winners and losers as well. Just as has always been true with any technology, devices will continue to become cheaper. Companies will have to balance lower hardware costs with increased costs for new systems management capabilities. Accenture firmly believes that our strong capabilities in mobile strategy, mobile device management, security, mobile application development and deployment can help your enterprise survive this transition, and help IT cross the bridge into a world where devices are inexpensive, employees are more satisfied, and worker productivity is not sacrificed for security and manageability. IT should start thinking about what it will be rolling out to employees and what employees will be purchasing on their own in 2013, when the chaos may begin to subside. It may still be difficult to standardize then, given the spectrum of options laptops, ultrabooks, hybrid PC/tablets and tablets but options should be dictated by what works for employees aligned to what can be enterprise secured and managed. But by then, IT can expect to see progress. Docking stations for tablets should become common. Mobile device management (MDM) and systems management tools will better accommodate devices in the enterprise. Tools that manage existing laptops will begin to manage tablets as well. It is likely that 5

7 Endnotes 1, 2 Copyright 2013 TechRepublic, Tech Sanity Check Steve Jobs proclaims the post-pc era has arrived Published: 2 June Contact Us For more information about how Accenture Mobility can help, contact: Nisha Sharma Lead Product and Offer Development, Enterprise Mobility Accenture Mobility nisha.sharma@accenture.com About Accenture Mobility Accenture is focused on enabling its clients to achieve breakthrough growth throughout the rapidly changing mobile ecosystem. Accenture Mobility offers five mobility services including consulting, software services applications, software services devices and platforms, managed services, and business integration services. These are designed to help organizations embrace business to employee (B2E), business to consumer (B2C), business to business (B2B) and machine to machine (M2M) business opportunities. Accenture offers mobility and embedded software services across a wide range of industries and platforms, including Android, Apple ios, Blackberry, Linux, Meego, Symbian, Windows Phone and Windows Phone 8. About Accenture Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 259,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$27.9 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, Its home page is For more information on Accenture Mobility please scan the 2D barcode. This document makes descriptive reference to trademarks that may be owned by others. The use of such trademarks herein is not an assertion of ownership of such trademarks by Accenture and is not intended to represent or imply the existence of an association between Accenture and the lawful owners of such trademarks. Copyright 2013 Accenture All rights reserved. Accenture, its logo, and High Performance Delivered are trademarks of Accenture /