With the prevalence of the mobile phone market domestically and abroad, I think it is safe to say we are a media hungry world. With MP3’s for ring tones, e-mail and text messaging blitzing in and out of your phone, and real-time video streaming to and from that little gadget in your hand - mobile media (media accessible through handheld devices) is now the rule, not the exception.

At what point do we see the commercial space cross over into the realm of enterprise? In decades past, it has been the enterprise that has paved the way for mass consumption of many things electronic - even the lucrative commercial offerings mobile phone providers now tout had their origins in Corporate America. Maybe it is time the commercial / retail space gave a little back.

Mobile media’s place in the enterprise is under discussion in many offices across the U.S. Arguably, there are key areas in the company which may be dramatically impacted through mobile media, but many executives still contend this medium of delivery as largely youth driven.

While mobile-media isn’t a favorite topic of those in the corner office, mobile media has really caught the eye of corporate IT, whose key responsibilities are generally keeping the network operational and ensuring overall security. Quite frankly, mobile media potentially threatens both.

With corporations overly-crowded ‘tubes’, companies are pushing more bandwidth down their pipes than ever. Sure server space and network speeds are to be had at a cheaper rate, but toss in the CFO’s command to control costs, and now you have a genuine recipe for a witch-hunt on your hands -with IT hold the pitch-forks and torches.

From personal experience in managing a mid-sized, privately held company’s infrastructure, it is a tough road to walk. Well, if you are in IT - you may think it very cut and dry, but how to you reconcile the bleeding-effect occurring between knowledge workers’ work and personal life?

Many times, today’s workers’ are working towards and being measured on results, not hours worked. These workers seek a streamlined life as well as consistent and constant access to data. In other words, they want always on connections that synchronize amongst themselves - digital on-ramps and off-ramps, and a key one of these being a handheld device.

Richer user experiences will continue to be a demand touted by skilled workers, and employers will have to find a way to deal with the expectations of fringe benefits such as a corporate handheld device that also doubles as a personal MP3 player - as in the case of the illustrious iPhone. If you think this is a fad, I would suggest not; it is a trend that appears to be increasing in frequency.

1. What challenges have you and your company run into with regards to mobile media?
2. Do you allow your mobile workforce to blur the lines between work and personal content?

Photo credit: Sanja Gjenero

Why do you still use Microsoft Office? As you read this aloud, you may ask yourself why I’m asking such a silly question… Is it - really - a simple question?

My company currently uses Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007 Professional editions, and overall, there are some wonderful tools at our disposal. Never before the invention of spreadsheets, word processors, presentation and database tools did the computer ever do so much for the “normal user”. Computers, for the longest time, were the domain of geeks and propeller heads alike - those that understood computer speak.

Along came graphical user interfaces and office productivity software. Then over time technology came to resemble a usable form, a form that could empower end-users to be more efficient, do more with less, and generally help make information easier to obtain.

Today, we live in a world where the enterprise is dominated by Microsoft. In stepping back to review, they have some of the very features IT shops of any size like to see: integration from the front office to the back office, standardized roll-out toolsets, control and security options, and a well-adopted base of subscribers ensuring overall platform stability.

Specifically, Microsoft really has three core offerings to the enterprise: Desktop software, Office software, and backoffice software (e.g. servers, e-mail, database, etc.). Microsoft’s Office division is arguably one of the most profitable divisions within the company, and this is because they produce very powerful, if not overly-bloated, productivity tools like Word, Excel, etc. However, the cost to maintain this for an organization of any size can become a little harsh after you start seeing on-going costs, especially during major version upgrades.

For this reason, and many others revolving around Microsoft’s monopolistic profile in this segement, other somewhat strong players have begun to emerge slowly such as, OpenOffice and Google Docs. These are free to download and use (as of this writing), and offer very similar functions for many users.

However, the one big gotcha that always remains is the self-feeding loop Microsoft has established whereby I, as a user, must have Office to disseminate documents to my customers as they are using Office. If I were to switch away, I might not be able to see the document I receive from my customer very well or they may not be able to render my own document.

Transfering a document from one application format to another requires some very intricated filters that make it a 1-touch process for you and I. To be fair, these types of converstion filters just were not powerful enough to handle the transition - that is until lately.

OpenOffice was founded by a division of Sun Microsystems, and has been support through many generations of development. We are presently beginning field trials with the latest OpenOffice suite of software to facilitate expense reports, vacation requests and various other minor processes where we have found MS Office cost prohibitive in our standard configuration.

The benefits to us are it’s free and it can render Office documents fairly well (almost looking like their original fromat), and it can be used online and offline.

We also decided to begin beta testing the Google Docs software as well. Google Docs offers an online platform to manage your documents, but did not have a way to bring those documents to you when you couldn’t connect up to a wi-fi spot, that is until recently.

The Google Docs application has only undergone limited testing with our technology department itself. We found the integration quite easy, but a down side for us was that the import and re-export process for existing documnets has been plagued with formatting issues. Another thing you might want to be aware of is a clause not present in other productivity software suites:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

In an nutshell, this states your documents are now the property of Google. Going back, what was one of the major components enterprise clients require? Oh, that’s right control and security options! I wonder sometimes why we think Google is so much better than Microsoft with language like this floating through almost every one of their EULA’s.

In conclusion, for now Microsoft Office solutions wil continue to be our main stay because our clients require it, and because some of the back office integration with SharePoint, and just about every other program on the planet supports the Office products directly or indirectly. We cannot say the same for OpenOffice, but it is a compelling argument to load this on those users who do not need the advanced features provided in Office.

Google Docs, on the other hand, not only requires each person to have a login, separate from their network login, provides for the mass consumption of  your information at their discretion. That is a huge problem for me as the intellectual property possessed within our corporate documents outlines very key information to our on-going business.

Why are you still using Microsoft Office? Hopefully you have thought about it and know why. Chances are you are resigned to think that is your only recourse, but offerings such as OpenOffice are becoming much better aligned to the needs of the enterprise users and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. It is most definitely worth a look as it can save you some dollars on your bottom line.

Do you ever just call up a customer and ask them questions about what would make them happy? Well, I did. I had been toying with the idea of beta testing a [tag]Mac[/tag] in our business to see where it would fit, but I couldn’t really decide where to put it.

I called one of our account managers about some problems with his [tag]mobile device[/tag] and the fact that he hated the [tag]BlackBerry[/tag]. One thing led to another, and he asked if we might ever consider putting a Mac in our environment. The light bulb went off.

I am a little on the tortured side, I admit. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m the kind of guy who is never satisfied with status quo. Don’t get me wrong, I like stability (because the keeps me in a job), but I really like looking towards the horizon and bringing innovations to the business to make my customers happy.

I wouldn’t classify my style of innovation ‘bleeding edge’, but it might be characterized as ‘the bludgeoned edge’. I have had my fair share of beatings on selecting a products that were in the growth phase, but I have also found that it is often the best way to be influential over the development of a product as well.

A whole slew of questions sprinted through my head, but a technically savvy sales rep might be just the personality disposition I actually need to give honest feedback and a real-world test - not some IT lab.

So, am I insane? Apple isn’t fully ready yet for the [tag]enterprise[/tag], and third party line of business applications are quite sparse… So BootCamp with Vista becomes a fall back, but is that really an Apple solution? Now I’m just hosting different types of hardware that might not fall under my standard maintenance plan creating exceptions that could cause additional helpdesk calls.

On the other hand, is there any validity to the fact that Macs need less support? I still find that hard to believe, but that’s what I hear at least.

I’m still struggling on the answer to this question, and I would really love some help from [tag]Apple[/tag] on enterprise standardization tools. In this case, my choice seems to be between innovation or stability…

That’s a tough choice for me, and one that might likely drive me insane…

Well, it looks like Scoble did it again. In his article ‘Why enterprise software isn’t sexy‘, Scoble sends a shot across the bow at Bill Gates, calling him out on whining about the lack of enterprise software coverage in the blogosphere. Albeit an older article, I found it compelling, so here are some thoughts…

Scoble asks:

Well, how many people in the world actually buy business software? … Instead, let’s look at the business of journalism or even of blogging. We’re paid to deliver page views. Advertisers call it “CPM” (cost per thousand viewers). Now, what’s going to get more of you interested? Consumer software that you actually have a role in adopting or purchasing or enterprise software where some CIO somewhere else in your organization decides on?

Scoble bemoans having to use SAP because some CIO in his ivory tower made a business decision and forced him to use it. Why not look at end user adoption as a key metric? Can you live by the subjective metric of customer satisfaction? Embrace this simple fact, when you really meet the needs AND wants of your customers, it becomes a game changer… it’s ultimately the greatest metric for true success (see my previous posting Are You Focused on What Your Customers Need, or What They Want?)

Scoble also asks:

Any of you have any ideas on how to make business software sexy?

Sexy? Some of the pundits are asking why make enterprise software sexy? That’s not the point… well not exactly. Maybe I’m sick in the head, but I think it’s uber-sexy to get paid well to help a business run well and keep customers (internal and external) happy!

My contention is business software doesn’t necessarily need to be sexy, but it definitely needs a PR make-over!

At a recent Apple March 6 Event, Steve Jobs and some of his team outlined both the iPhone Enterprise Beta Program and iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK). While the long awaited SDK has been eagerly devoured by developers across the industry, I was keenly watching the Enterprise Roadmap.

In a nutshell, this allows the iPhone to connect to a Microsoft Exchange Server using ActiveSync. Thus, the end-user can receive “pushed” e-mail, calendar events, and contacts. This one area signals a storm that is long overdue in the world of technology, the introduction of a truly disruptive technology such as the iPhone & iPod Touch.

For a long time, Microsoft has catered to the goliath of enterprise business, giving this audience just enough of what they needed to hook them into an ever growing web of Microsoft products. They quickly understood that businesses wanted integration across their networks, to bring a common user interface (UI) to everyone. Why spend a lot of time and money on integrating software platforms when you have at least a promise of integration with a suite of solutions by one provider.

Microsoft leveraged their dominance in the desktop market to grow into the office suite, back office products, and even the mobile market.

Apple on the other hand had floundered without Steve Jobs at the helm, and has been playing catch-up for quite some time upon his return. However, by “the 4th quarter of 2007, the iPhone surged to a 28% share of the US converged device market…” (TechCrunch). With the veritable flop of Vista (to date), the surge of adoption of the iPhone and iPod products, and the launch of the iPhone Roadmap Apple stands poised to ride a cresting wave of unfounded end-user adoption…

Even though many people are making a big deal out of the iPhone, there are some other key things that hold true adoption of the Apple offerings back, and those are 3rd party application integration. Sure you can run Office 2008 on a Mac, but does it really work? Does it really play as well with the OS as it might on Vista?

Enter virtualization technologies… and I’m not just talking about Bootcamp or parallel here people; there are revolutionary new offerings whereby applications themselves can be pushed to the desktop for an extremely rich user experience while allowing IT an easier path to management.

And let’s not forget SaaS (Software as a Service). The ability to have an almost desktop-like experience is quickly replacing the “old” model of licensing and extending the enterprise across work and home computers securely. IT staffs are scrambling to handle more diverse fleets of hardware and software every day, and the resurgence of centralization (e.g. virtualization and thin/web clients) is gaining some tremendous ground and attention.

All these things play to Apple’s advantage, as the underdog. However, these are just as easily capitalized on by others as well. So what is the catalyst that will tip Apple over the edge to gain true marketshare? Giving customers what they want how they want it… see Starbucks!

I’m going on record! I predict that IF apple continues on its iPhone Roadmap, continues to develop disruptive technologies (as they have proven they can do), and can keep giving customers what they need and want, in 5 years Apple will have between 25% - 45% marketshare in the business desktop/notebook space.

 Yes, Apple can take over the enterprise! Next, can Apple unseat RIM BlackBerry?