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Device Management Is The Next Battlegound For Business Mobility

The first wave of the mobile business wars was defined by two fronts. Front one was the vertical market. A few verticals, like healthcare, led the way to mobility and vendors who were ready for these markets and their unique demands won. Those who kept waiting for the universal mobile office in-a-box lost. The other front was push e-mail, which RIM's BlackBerry has obviously captured. What's next in the fight for mobile business dollars?

It looks like device management is shaping up as the next battleground for mobile business vendors.

HP last week said that it planned to challenge RIM on just this area:

"Mobile devices are only as cool as they work," said Gene Wang, vice-president of marketing for the Handheld Business Unit with HP’s Personal Systems Group, during the HP Mobility Summit in Shanghai last week. "Problems can start as soon as you take a new phone out of the box."

Mobile security is a big pain point for enterprises, he said, which is why the company has rolled out HP Enterprise Mobility Suite, designed to reduce IT support costs, protect corporate data and improve workforce productivity through a self-serve Web portal.

This is the first mobile device management suite introduced since HP’s acquisition of Bitfone last December, which pioneered over-the-air device management for wireless devices (Wang is the former chief executive of Bitfone). HP’s suite includes over-the-air software updates, device configuration, diagnostics and device security.

Device management has always been BlackBerry's other strength. In addition to delivering e-mail, BlackBerry's Enterprise Server also includes integrated device management. As I pointed out a few weeks ago, this is one of the reasons BlackBerry still dominates the mobile e-mail market:

Device management is included with the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). IT policy control is a big reason BlackBerry wins. IT managers need total control over what their employees are able to do with a wireless device. BES can manage mobile devices and that's important.

I have long argued that BES' ease-of-use for IT managers is one of the reasons for BlackBerry's success. If vendors like HP are going to compete with RIM, they must offer device management that is better, costs less, and, most importantly, is even easier to use than BES.

I think HP's recent announcements are a step in the right direction. But I don't know if they are enough. HP still seems too focused on selling their components and not on offering a unified vision and experience. They should focus on selling an experience that makes all the problems of an IT manager go away. Device management is a perfect hook on which to frame this position.

Welcome to the device management battlefield, HP. I am sure many of your rivals are already on their way to meet you. Just remember, this ain't uncharted territory. RIM has been here for a while, too.

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