Corporate, government, and educational enterprises are looking very seriously at deploying large quantities of mobile devices, often to replace laptops. What does this mean to you? IT needs to be able to put the same policy, management capability, and security plans in place to ensure success and limit exposure during these times. The Enterprise Desktop Alliance is carefully gauging this trend and our member companies are already introducing tools to help IT cope in this ever-changing landscape.

Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and now Android mobile devices have had an Enterprise focus and now with the introduction of iOS 4, Apple devices including the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad are more enterprise-ready than ever before. iOS 4 catches up to the other mobile OS’s by adding multitasking and fast app switching. iOS 4 also introduces several important Enterprise features including support for “Mobile Device Management” and new data protection APIs. The “Mobile Device Management” APIs enable EDA member companies and others to provide full management capability including deployment, inventory, and remote wipe of mobile devices. Exchange ActiveSync and a unified inbox add enterprise capable mail features.

The Enterprise Desktop Alliance helps you keep a pulse on the latest trends in the multi-platform management world. Hear what the industry and your peers are doing as they address the ever changing world of endpoint management. The EDA will continue to offer best practice guides, webinars and conduct surveys to keep you abreast on the issues that matter to you and your peers.

We want your voice to be heard. If you have experiences, questions or challenges that apply, chances are you are not alone. Please email us at info@enterprisedesktopalliance.com to comment, inquire and provide feedback.

Peter Frankl – VP Lifecycle Management, Absolute

And the 2M unit run rate of iPads means that those Macs will be joined by iPhones, iPads and iPods. And by phones, tablet computers and new form factors running new Linux derived OSes such as Android, HP/Palm WebOS devices and Samsung Bada OS. And by lots of other computers that may or may not be owned by your organization and not always controlled by IT.

Your colleagues and customers who own all of these new devices will want to use your LAN, wireless and Internet connections, and many will want to access IT services such as e-mail, file servers, intranets, printers and more.

The good news is that everything is going to be just fine. There are tools from many vendors, including the Enterprise Desktop Alliance members, that can help you handle this new complexity and maintain the quality of service and security that your organization expects.

Why are things different now? It’s a perfect storm combining the pace of technology, the demands of our post-recession, lean staffed, globally connected businesses, and the ever growing mastery of technology of our population.

You do need a plan. And helpful vendors like us who know how to wrangle these potentially unruly interlopers into acceptably domesticated, productive tools for your colleagues and customers.

The Enterprise Desktop Alliance wants to help by providing you with information on issues and solutions and even on the trends themselves. We conducted a market survey in June 2010 to get an accurate count on how many of these new devices have been adopted and are expected to be roaming the halls of your organization and others like yours. When we publish the results of this data later this summer, it will help all of us size the trends that we’re all seeing and that we began to quantify in our desktop management survey earlier this year.

Over the next few months, EDA members will post a series on best practices that will help you prepare for and manage this new multi-OS world. We encourage you to read, comment and engage us about issues that concern you. Please email us at info@enterprisedesktopalliance.com to comment, inquire and recommend.

Reid Lewis
- President, Enterprise Desktop Alliance
- President, Group Logic