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Enterprises are today moving towards mobility. With mobile devices becoming cheaper and services more affordable, the option to go mobile is not a distant dream. Mobile smart phones and PDAs are moving towards becoming the perfect solution for all enterprise woes of connectivity and communication. They have evolved from being simple communication devices to a productivity tool for the professionals on the move.

As they have greater functionality enterprise mobile devices can perform better and at higher speeds giving professionals the edge, required to survive in the highly competitive market. They are becoming the lifeline providing them with not just connectivity, 24x7, but also the opportunity to increase productivity and build profits.

The Mobile Workforce
More and more applications are being loaded on these devices making them stronger productivity options for the enterprise users. Today a professional can hold conferences, transfer data, access updates and information, all on the move through these mobile devices.

Abilities such as emailing, Web access and access to the organizations resources on the move makes it easier for the remote workers and the mobile workforce to stay in touch with the business.

Now feature loaded enterprise devices such as smart phones come with in-built digital cameras and other features, which provide them with greater functionality and improved efficiency.

There has been a significant amount of convergence of applications in the mobile devices segment. Earlier the enterprise believed that most of the applications would be data centric but the trend in last couple of years has seen voice as an integral part of applications. A number of players churned out PDAs in the last year but if we compare the shipments of smart phones to PDAs in last year its 4:1.

Are Smart Phones Enough?
Smart phones are the new take on both cell phones and PDAs. They are the handheld hybrids that combine the features of both, and can handle voice and data communications along with the processing capability of a handheld PC. Smart phones and PC-connected cell phones that can perform personal information management (PIM) synchronization with desktop tools such as Microsoft Outlook (among other useful tasks) are making PDAs outdated. On the other hand smaller screen size and poor battery backup are the areas that need to be worked on.

Whether to choose a smart phone or a PDA depends on the requirements of an organization. However, the enterprise has a clear idea of what is the ideal device to be used and then they bracket it in terms of cost functionality, etc. Mobility has become a crucial factor for the enterprises today which forms an integral part of the enterprise growth strategy.

There have been two kind of adoption, one where the enterprise goes with planned purchase to integrate mobile applications within the organization, and the other where employees bring their own devices, which is more relevant in India.

Enterprise mobile devices today have an excellent voice functionality that allows clear multi party conference calls; call management and interoperability between fixed phones and mobile phones, Internet calls (VoIP over WLAN). Despite being largely voice driven a smart phone also enables reading Word, Excel, PowerPoint files and, to some extent, edit them and synchronize the changes with the PC. Good browsing capabilities, multiple email clients, long battery life and ability to support common operating systems are the features available for enterprise on the move.

Another niche market of highly sophisticated mobile devices which have extremely great performance capabilities also exists, but these devices are negligible in the country mainly owing to the high costs.

Adoption Drivers
Adopting mobile devices in the enterprise is mainly driven by the need to increase productivity without incurring high costs. Moreover, companies which have standard open systems on which applications are built want to see how best people can leverage off open platforms when they are displaced from their work station. This does not affect productivity.

For the enterprise user mobile devices also help in maintaining work life balance, which is a big area internationally and is fast picking up in India. For those organizations aiming at the international market, mobile devices and applications provide them with an egde and help them work towards a 24x7 working scenario.

Key Challenges
Despite all the hype there are certain challenges that the enterprise faces in adoption of mobile devices. Security is certainly the key aspect but at times it is mostly misinterpreted. The enterprise needs to define application specific security concerns. The aspects of basic computing cover are being introduced to cover the security aspects of mobiles. These include defining the number of characters required for passwords, allow or disallow third party application, etc. Other security solutions such as device lock, MMC lock, operator WLAN/EAP SIM for wireless security are available to address this issue.

Cost has been another limiting factor for the adoption of smart phones. But due to the meticulous effort of vendors cost has been brought down significantly.

The ability to upgrade seamlessly is another aspect, which affects the acceptance of these devices in an enterprise. With more and more adoption, device management is also becoming a contributing factor. Lack of a sound device management strategy can affect the smart phone market significantly. Thus mobile vendors and application email solution vendors are all coming together to provide device management solution, which is important to increase the adoptions in enterprise.