VDC Research: Enterprise & Government Mobility Market Blog

Event Recap – Citrix Synergy

Citrix succeeded in demonstrating it can innovate on application delivery and customer service

I had the pleasure of attending Citrix's Synergy customer event this past week in Orlando Florida. The event was well attended (about 7.5K on-prem, and roughly 5K remote attendees) and featured a nice mix of vendors on the show floor that ranged from small startups to heavies such as Cisco, IBM, Intel and Microsoft. After narrowly missing its Q1 numbers a few weeks ago, Citrix needed to demonstrate that its recent restructuring and organizational changes were positives; and that they were helping to transition the business to its next phase of growth. The company's GM and CSO for Workspace Services Geir Ramleth summed it up nicely when he said: "This is a new Citrix — we're moving in a more cohesive way." Citrix was successful in this vein, Synergy provided a big opportunity to showcase a robust innovation pipeline in front of the company's most important customers.

The Suite Always Wins (right?)

If you've been tracking the evolution of mobile enablement in the enterprise, you know that many vendors are vying to deliver "holistic" or "end-to-end" mobility solutions (suites). The goal is certainly a noble one, but it is not very realistic. Most large firms are working with several EMM and complementary security vendors, as well as with a variety of application development platform and tool vendors; while this is not ideal, it is a fact of life (today at least). However, as Apple, Google, Samsung and Microsoft continue to refine their mobility solutions, vendors like Citrix will need to focus on helping businesses simplify application delivery and provide them with tools that can help with implementing best practices and with  mobile architecture and security policies. Bottom line, differentiating is going to get tougher. From what I heard at Synergy, Citrix gets it, and is working hard on developing new products and services that will enable businesses to move beyond thinking about which devices to provision and support by offering device and network agnostic solutions that can manage modern mobile applications while enabling them to move legacy applications to a cloud environment via a single control plane.

The "suite approach" isn't going away (IBM, Oracle and SAP have proved that), but it is changing. Opening up platforms is critical moving forward; customers don't want to be "locked in", and need the flexibility to run the applications of their choosing. While Citrix maintains a broad portfolio of products: XenApp, XenDesktop and XenServer to secure data via virtualization, NetScaler and CloudBridge to secure the network, and XenMobile, WorxApps and ShareFile (and now Workspace Cloud) to provide a containerized environment for productivity applications, to share content and provision applications, it is a stretch to call these a "suite". However, the range of these solutions shows how many elements are needed in a modern enterprise. Not to mention important partners that vendors like Citrix must integrate with that can help deliver capabilities for streamlining app development, enhanced security, secure messaging, and user experience reporting/monitoring. Bottom line, suites sound good to customers, but require complementary solutions. While the vision and approach that Citrix is pursuing to enable their customers to seamlessly manage and provision modern mobile applications while helping them move to the cloud is the right one; others have moved in this direction too.

Feud Continues — Enzo and Beyond the Horizon

The fact the VMware unveiled its project "Enzo" the day before Citrix's Synergy event wasn't surprising (after all, Citirix announced key enhancements to XenApp and Xen Desktop the day before VMworld kicked off last summer). Regardless, both Enzo and Citrix's Workspace Cloud share a similar goal and  make use of a control plane to enable customers to deliver a comprehensive mobile workspace to their end users; with the aim of better orchestration between apps, physical resources and the cloud. I plan on digging deeper to learn more about the technical differences between these competing solutions; suffice it to say that these are complex and have the potential to disrupt how end user computing services are delivered. Both Citrix and VMware have robust solutions; however they both are challenged by the strong interdependencies that exist between their various solution components — not to mention limited backwards compatibility as they update their platforms.

One Final Thing ...

The big reveal at Synergy was Dynamic Containerization (DC) which appears to bypass the need to access and modify an app's source code (a cumbersome and very limiting process). DC brings the ability to containerize any publicly available app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. I had the opportunity to speak with several key stakeholders that were involved in developing DC; there is no question that Citrix has proved they can deliver this capability (I've saw a demo), however, I'm skeptical as to whether the method/IP is in violation of the TOS of both Apple and Google. End users would love this capability and have been asking for it; however this will be a wait and see as the product matures.

The #UNCEO

Mark Templeton has been with Citrix from the beginning, he's plain-spoken, down-to-earth and is the epitome of the #UNCEO. CEO's like John Legere and Marc Benioff may be the most prominent #UNCEO's, but Templeton should be right there with them (credit to my friend @bobeagan for mentioning this at the event). Not only does he pull off this vest, but Templeton made it a priority to visit with many of his company's partners on the show floor (even the smallest vendors).

Ping Mark and encourage him to be more active on Twitter - it's not too late. After all, Obama just joined this week!

Wrap

This blog didn't cover several of the important initiatives that were revealed at Synergy; namely: WorkspaceHub (a dongle which incorporates both BLE and WiFi and features with VGA and HDMI inputs) that leverages Octoblu (a Citrix cloud platform) to manage M2M interaction between devices by using sensors and wireless connectivity. The demo of this tech wowed the audience as it showed how a workspace could be seamlessly "moved" from one device to another. The integration with Amazon's Echo was the most impressive element as it enabled voice-control in the workplace. Concierge: which enables real-time customer service and support directly from within a mobile application (great use of #WebRTC). Citrix also showed off CubeFree: a modern version of the WiFi finder mobile app but for finding reliable workspaces (cool concept).

Upon leaving the event, it was clear that the company's key executives and product owner/managers had been busy working on the technology that was showcased. Citrix's vision is a good one, but it will definitely take time for companies to make a meaningful move in the direction that the company is moving in. There are a variety of factors that have placed CIOs in a holding pattern when it comes to extending mobile applications to their workforce. These range from the acknowledgment of not being properly equipped to support mobile platforms (from an IT and resource perspective) to being unable to successfully articulate the value proposition and ROI from mobile enablement to corporate leaders. But from what I'm seeing in the market, it will only be a matter of time ...

 

Event Recap ― SAP SAPPHIRE (Mobile Perspective)

2014 proved that SAP can play "in the cloud", but they still need to get their mobile house in order ...

S/4HANA's Big Roll out

To no one's surprise, this past week's SAPPHIRE conference was all about S/4HANA, the next-generation ERP suite that SAP launched this past February. The company's CEO Bill McDermott spoke with conviction about the importance of digitization and customer centricity, and made it clear that S/4HANA was going to deliver on the "simple promise" and help businesses become both data-driven and seamless.

S/4HANA is definitely a big deal, as it has a notably reduced footprint which will reduce complexity and simplify migration. But the speed of the platform is what will be the most appealing (3-7x the throughput and up to 1,800 times faster analytics, according to SAP). It remains to be seen how quickly the company will be able to capitalize from its robust and cloud-optimized business suite. SAP did a superb job this year in getting key prominent customers to participate on stage at SAPPHIRE — of course, the risk is that the spokesperson goes "off script" — this seemed to happen when Walmart's EVP and CIO Karenann Terrel proclaimed "I hope to see S4/HANA delivered in my lifetime ... it’s on my bucket list." Ouch. SAP needs to quickly prove that migration can be simple and beneficial. Progress is being made (the company revised its Q1 S/4HANA customer count to 400+ (from 370), but the bet on S/4HANA is so large, that the pace will need to increase quickly.

Google and Facebook

McDermott provided some new details on the future of his company's partnership with Google, saying that it will "make work easier for people". Google's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt (via video) described it as "a great day", and explained how SAP software integration with Google for Work was a priority for the company. Schmidt went on to say: "What's great about this first step, with all the big customers that we jointly have, is that we are now able to show the power of web and mobile computing and the power of all that data and computation that SAP has been producing for years."

There were no real new details pertaining to the partnership with Facebook; however it is clear that the companies have been collaborating together since last summer. It appears as thought they have made progress by leveraging S/4HANA to enable businesses to build on-the-fly social media marketing promotions and target Facebook users with customized advertisements.

There were other notable announcements at the event, including a new CRM digital for customer engagement (DCE) application (initial 30-day free trial then $29/user/month), as well as some clear progress on the IoT front — however, the remainder of this post will focus on what we learned about the company's progress in augmenting its Mobile Secure product portfolio.

Rick is Running

SAP snagged a true mobility veteran in Rick Costanzo who has been running the company's global mobility BU for just over a year. Costanzo also is responsible for the company's Telco business (a recent reorganization called for the two BUs to merge) — however, the reorg. along with the departure of several key mobile executives, raised some eyebrows. After meeting with several key mobility executives (including Rick Costanzo), the party line was that the BUs were not only similar in size, but were better together. Could be. But, SAP needs the newly consolidated Telco and Mobility business units to enhance its delivery scale, increase agility, generate portfolio synergy and improve profitability. This is precisely what seems to be in the works, with a realigned go-to-market strategy, and a dedicated enterprise mobility sales organization. This is good progress considering Costanzo's short tenure. 

Mobile Secure, Apps and Key Partners

SAP is hinting at further integration of its development platform (SMP) with its Mobile Secure solution — this makes sense, and seems to be direction that others are moving in as well. The company also announced partnerships with Innovapptive and Sitrion to complement its custom mobile app platform; both offer prepackaged mobile apps and leverage S/4HANA's mobile services. SAP continues to benefit from its partnership with Mocana, and alluded to new synergistic partners that will likely be revealed in Q3. SAP continues to de-emphasize its Afaria brand (smart), and is leading with the right messaging: security. However, differentiation is becoming increasingly difficult for all enterprise mobility vendors — in this vein, SAP should be more aggressive with showing its customers that has been successful in unifying its disparate development platforms (SUP, Syclo, Mobilizer) and showcase its content and application management capabilities.

One last take away — key SAP mobility executives seem to be working well with key ecosystem partners such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft. In my view, the company's customer footprint in the enterprise is more valuable than it realizes; this puts SAP in a excellent negotiating position with these larger and highly sought after partners.

Off to Citrix Synergy!

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Following Record Q2 Earnings, Apple Turns to Partnerships to Bolster Enterprise Ambitions

This week, Apple made headlines with record earnings in Q2, mostly on the back of iPhone 6 sales, while iPad sales continue to slip. In an effort to maintain the tablet’s relevance, Apple is redoubling its efforts in the enterprise, where the iPad has gained considerable traction. To that, CEO Tim Cook announced that Apple is working with an increased number of partners to expand its reach into the enterprise and change how people work. The partnership goes well beyond IBM to include app developers like Box, bigtincan, Docusign, ServiceMax, Revel, MicroStrategy and Workato to expand Apple’s reach well into the enterprise ecosystem. While OEMs partnering with ISVs is not new within the enterprise – we have only to look to both BlackBerry and Samsung’s teaming up with SAP as a counterexample – it nevertheless represents a continuation of Cook’s vision to firmly plant Apple in the enterprise. With Windows 10 looming on the horizon, growing Surface 3 and Surface 3 Pro sales and a stagnating market for consumer tablets, the pressure for Apple to establish itself as not only a viable competitor, but the competitor to beat in an increasingly competitive market.

Consumer devices still hold considerable influence

While iPad sales have stalled in the consumer market, their influence continues to grow within the enterprise, as a growing number of companies are looking to mobilize their workforce. SVP and CFO Luca Maestri cited a survey in Monday’s earning call in which 77% of corporate buyers looking to buy tablets within the next six months plan to purchase iPads. VDC estimates that in 2013, nearly 6 million devices were deployed into enterprise and government applications, accounting for nearly half the market of consumer grade tablets in the enterprise – a number that is sure to grow. The power of the brand and the familiarity of the user interface have made the tablet nearly the de facto choice for non-rugged deployments in the enterprise. In a world in which “tablet” and “iPad” are synonymous for many, particularly in an enterprise purchasing position, Apple’s potential is enormous. The groundwork Cook laid in opening up Apple and iOS to outside partnerships in previous year, particularly in making a decisive break with the company’s Jobsian roots in partnering with IBM for enterprise solutions, is providing a strong foundation upon which Apple can build.

In the land of enterprise mobility, user experience is king

However, to be successful in the enterprise, Apple needs to ensure the strength of its partnerships and its app ecosystem. Tuesday’s headlines of dozens of American Airlines flights being grounded due to an enterprise iPad app glitch is a glaring reminder as to the vulnerabilities that abound in the push to mobilize. Even when the stakes are not quite as high, there need nevertheless remains to ensure an integrated experience that functions in conjunction with robust security. While Apple is partnering with major ISVs, many smaller, best of breed names on the list will have the opportunity to bring their capabilities to the forefront on a much larger stage. Companies like bigtincan are looking to bring seamless functionality to the forefront, particularly in working with Apple’s Handoff technology to enable users to work with content across all form factors, as well as using other iOS features like TouchID and the ability to add external content from iOS8 enabled apps. Meanwhile, ISV Workato is partnering with Apple to provide an even deeper level of app integration that enables end users to enable workflows across applications without the need to app-swap. By opening itself up to such a broad spectrum of partners, Apple could shore up its position even further in the enterprise space, especially if it can provide the user experience enterprise consumers have come to expect through their personal devices.

Partnerships are bringing enterprise to all platforms

While much of the enterprise attention is focused on the iPad, given its commercial potential despite the rapid maturation of the form factor, another enterprise foothold could be the newly launched Apple Watch. Although much of the media attention has been dedicated to consumer adoption rates and applications, VDC has already looked at the potential for the wearable to pave the way for smartwatches to become a more integral part of enterprise mobility. Regardless of form factor, though, Apple has nurtured a healthy ecosystem of third-party applications and peripheral devices that are empowering enterprise across industry verticals that solidify the company’s capabilities beyond personal consumption. Moving forward, however, one concern Apple will need to address is the breadth of its services beyond its partnership with IBM, particularly as companies like Samsung have moved to expand its enterprise presence through a comprehensive services solution. The challenge now that it has donned the mantle of enterprise competitor will be to ensure that Apple can bring these partnerships to fruition and gain the necessary traction to successfully compete against the likes of Microsoft and Samsung in a world where services, user experience, and seamless integration are paramount. 

Could the Apple Watch be a tipping point for enterprise wearables?

In the days before the official launch of the Apple watch on the 24^th and Apple counting nearly a million pre-orders since last Friday, much of the tech world is abuzz with talk about the newest smartwatch to hit the market and the impact it could have on wearables as a genre. Although wearable devices have been on the market for some time, they have failed to garner any notable traction in the consumer market. The question remains as to whether the pricier, designer Apple Watch can be the catalyst for widespread adoption the way its predecessors were for smartphones and tablets and pave the way for greater integration of wearables in the enterprise.

The slow climb towards enterprise acceptance

Despite the current focus on smartwatches, the wearable form factor represents a broad spectrum of devices, particularly in the enterprise, where less consumer-oriented devices like wrist- and hip-mounted computers and ring-mounted scanners are more the norm, as well as head-mounted displays like that of Vuzix and the much-maligned Google Glass. However, the majority of the deployments for these wearables have primarily been for relatively niche applications that have traditionally revolved around data collection-intensive environments like the warehouse, where the benefits of hands-free devices are more immediately tangible. However, with enterprise mobility reaching even the most conservative of companies, interest in wearables is spreading across industry verticals. Notable examples include the healthcare industry, as well as logistics and field services where the benefits of being hands-free are becoming increasingly apparent. While many of these developing use cases have been for head-mounted displays like Google Glass (particularly in logistics and warehousing for vision-based picking applications), it has made enterprises take a more creative approach to equipping their mobile workforce and the benefits to be gained. Data from VDC Research shows that a growing number of industries are evaluating wearables, although the lack of a clear ROI remains one of the primary barriers to adoption.

Finding the killer app

The primary challenge in bringing wearables like the smartwatch into the enterprise is that, unlike other mobile devices, the wearable is not typically a standalone product, but is tethered to another device – usually a smartphone. By acting as a complementary device, it brings up the question as to whether it is truly needed in line of business applications. However, the ISV and development community is bullish on the notion, as evidenced by the growing number of solutions that incorporate smartwatches: last month Good Technology became the first enterprise mobility management (EMM) vendor to support wearables with Good Work, while Salesforce launched Salesforce Wear in the summer of last year as a platform to encourage app development for the form factor. Many of the emerging use cases revolve around hands free notification and ID functionality through NFC and BLE, although EMM vendors like Good Technology see potential for data security through the use of the device in dual-factor authentication and access control. Nevertheless, many of the gains are viewed as incremental and complementary rather than revolutionary, as the introduction of the smartphone and tablet into the workplace has set the bar high.

 Awaiting the tipping point

With thought leaders across the board predicting the explosion of wearables and IoT both in consumer and enterprise markets, it is only a matter of time before wearables as a whole gain more widespread acceptance and, once again, all eyes are on Apple. If the company succeeds as it has in the past in capturing the imagination of the public and the developer community alike, this month’s launch will likely prove the much-anticipated and talked about tipping point for wearables. This, in turn, will bring forth new layers of complexity regarding BYOD and security policies to an already complex environment, especially as the vast majority of devices will be personally-owned for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, April’s launch will determine whether wearables can finally make the transition from consumer trend to enterprise-ready. 

(Research and contributions from Judy Zhang)

Why Content is King on Mobile Platforms

VDC's recent conversations with CIOs indicate that a shift in thinking is underway; organizations recognize that they need to expand their security focus beyond their users and their device(s) to the data both the users and devices have access to. This data-centric security model is helping CIOs and IT leaders to exert greater control and increase their level of comfort with their mobile policies. While protecting data on a server has become par for the course in the enterprise, protecting data in motion is a whole other kettle of fish. The increasing use of mobile devices in the enterprise has employees carrying around (and potentially exposing) more information than ever. A typical mobile device is likely to contain both personal and work-related data – including emails, email attachments, voice mails, text messages, and potentially private corporate data.

 

Providing access to corporate content is game-changing

 

The ability to provision and control access of corporate content to mobile platforms represents a significant area of growth, as evidenced by how vendors such as DropBox and Box have seen their subscriber numbers skyrocket as they have made it easy for consumers to access their personal photos, files, and videos on all platforms, regardless of device. However, there are many scenarios for these types of services to be extended into the corporate world so that users have perpetual access to their data and content. What continues to change is the type and volume of content, as well as the places in which content needs to travel to enable business processes. Most large organizations have invested in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) infrastructure, and have terabytes of content siloed in those systems. Mobile access to these repositories has been possible for some time; however, only recently have we seen CIOs feeling more confident in allowing mobile access to this content. This is primarily due to the enhanced security features that mobile-first vendors have implemented in the past 12 months. These vendors have integrated elegant containerization solutions that feature sophisticated authentication mechanisms that can easily interface with existing identity management solutions. Furthermore, the native mobile VPN capabilities on both the iOS and Android platforms continues to improve and evolve, enabling vendors to further enhance the security posture of their solutions and giving the C-suite the peace of mind they require for more advanced mobile enablement.

 

 

Smaller vendors are leading the way

 

While EMM vendors have made great progress in integrating robust MCM capabilities into their EMM suites (successful examples include AirWatch (Content Locker), MobileIron (Docs@Work), and Good Technology (Good Share) and innovative startups such as Big Tin Can, Egnyte, and OwnCloud have proven their mettle in the market, it is only a matter of time before large vendors like IBM and Microsoft enter the arena in a meaningful way. Both of these firms have not only made clear intimations on enterprise mobility, but are ready invest significantly to ensure their position; despite progress with Lync and Delve, Microsoft may need to acquire in this space in order to bolster their offerings. Meanwhile, IBM has made strides in MCM with MaaS 360 to provide scalable enterprise mobility solutions. The question remains, however, as to what the impact large vendors will have on smaller, more agile EMM vendors looking to innovate in this space.

 

 Providing the tools towards a Post-PC era

 

A variety of tools and solutions have emerged to help address the new mobile workforce challenge ― vendors know a problem exists, as they hear their customers asking for help to deal with the onslaught of data and new forms of mobile content (such as work products from new mobile applications that include forms or images, audio, and video content) that are increasingly common in their organizations. While the ability to discover, search for, view, edit, and annotate an increasingly broad range of content from a mobile platform moves us closer to what many refer to as the post-PC era, it is the incorporation of enterprise features like granular policy control, auditing, and traceability of documents and business content that will give CIOs the peace of mind they need to open up databases and content management systems to their mobile workforce.

 

 with Eric Klein, Managing Director

 

 

The EMM Pivot is Upon us #MWC15 EMM Recap

Mobile first EMM vendors know they must evolve — and they are ...

As one might expect, the high profile handset refreshes from Samsung (Galaxy S6), HTC (M9) and LG (G Flex 2) and the notable (and well timed) acquisition announcements (NXP acquiring Freescale, HP acquiring Aruba Networks, and Mitel's acquisition of Mavenir) garnered the lion share of the post MWC media coverage. However, there was something different at MWC this year. There was a "new partner" sitting in on several of the briefings we had at MWC.

Google sent several senior executives to Barcelona (Sundar Pichai, Rajen Sheth, and Andrew Toy were the most visible) — either Rajen or Andrew was present (and actively participating) at several of the meetings we attended at MWC — the exception? Our meeting with Good Technology. Why? Read on.

Android for Work is Legit and KNOX is Not Dead (yet)

Every prominent enterprise mobility vendor has moved quickly to completely integrate with the Android for Work platform.

Good is negotiating with Google and is likely to join the other prominent vendors listed above who were quick to announce their integration with the Android for Work Platform — however, it appears as though Good (and SOTI) have forged strong(er) partnerships with Samsung. Both seem to have gone further than their peers in integrating with the company's KNOX platform (which is not just a container). While all of the vendors listed above have been working with Samsung's KNOX platform; after speaking with several Samsung executives, the level of integration with KNOX is varied. Good and SOTI have seen traction from their partnership with Samsung and have figured out creative ways to go to market (one sure fire method is to give away the device — while not sustainable, it appears as though Samsung is willing to do so). Here's what my colleague David Krebs wrote in his MWC Event Recap post:

In summary, we see both Good and SOTI benefiting by working with both Google and Samsung. Both vendors have a sizable footprint in both government and financial service industries. We expect that Good will formalize its partnership with Google soon.

ACE to the Rescue

The launch of App Configuration for Enterprise (or ACE) was timed for MWC. Five prominent enterprise mobility vendors (AirWatch by VMware, Box, Cisco, Workday and Xamarin) have collaborated on the standard which aims to simplify and scale the deployment of apps in the enterprise. The benefits are clear and straightforward (see below).

There is no question that enterprises are challenged by app provisioning and distribution. Considering that multiple versions of the same app (built with different SDKs) is now normal, the standards-based platform agnostic approach (thanks to the ability to seamlessly invoke both the latest iOS and Android   APIs) will be welcome. However, the consortia needs to get other important vendors on board (Citrix, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP come to mind). 

EMM Evolution

My next report (scheduled for May) will focus on the evolution of EMM. I'm seeing some interesting (and consistent) thinking from prominent EMM vendors on how they intend to evolve and differentiate their platforms moving forward. Key initiatives that are in development and on most road maps include:

• Split billing
• Unified Endpoint Management
• Enhanced email clients
• Architecture enhancements
• UX / Console optimization

I'm actively scheduling briefings to discuss the evolution of EMM and the pivot that I anticipate. If we didn't meet at MWC, I'd welcome to opportunity to discuss this topic with you in the next few weeks.

Kudos to GSMA for hosting another top-notch event. See you at MWC 2016!

 

Apperian Goes Big on User Acceptance Testing

The rise of the custom B2C and B2E app

With an increasingly mobile workforce relying on a combination of enterprise-issued and BYOD devices, the need of custom-made applications to support line of business workflows has grown significantly in recent years.  Data from VDC shows that there is a clear trend towards custom applications that are internally developed, as the year-on-year change for internally developed apps was positive across all industry verticals surveyed. Field mobility in particular saw a marked increase from 30% to 45% of apps being custom developed in-house.  While an increasing portion of resources are being allocated to development, quality assurance (QA) and user acceptance testing (UAT) are often complex and long processes that require specific skills and can be difficult to scale. Frequently, the testing pool is limited, and often relegated to a small number of employees, or even the developers themselves, which can adversely affect the user experience of the app. Apperian, a mobile-first ISV, is looking to address this shortcoming with the industry’s first large-scale solution for user-acceptance testing for mobile applications.

Engaging the community

Looking to overcome the traditional constraints of app testing, Apperian seeks to cast a broader net to both improve the stability and quality of the app, and to significantly cut down on time-to-market. According to CTO Carlos Montero-Luque,  Apperian has “reimagined what mobile app testing should be by empowering hundreds and even thousands of employees and/or contractors to be part of a user acceptance test process,” which they cite has already had a significant impact for early customers. In addition to saving money and time, engaging employees and the broader community provides a platform in which stakeholders have an opportunity to voice their opinions and know that their needs and concerns are being heard.

Security remains an issue

With the number of apps being developed in-house on the rise, security still remains a critical issue. Recent data from a VDC survey on software development reveals that only 8% of respondents have an application security program in place that is specific to mobile applications. When looking at in-house development, that number drops even lower, with a scant 4% of respondents having the means to test applications in-house.  Although most protection revolves around secure coding techniques, other measures, including binary protection countermeasures, are necessary to prevent hackers from pirating or compromising the confidentiality and integrity of applications. Failure to do so can result in applications that are easily reverse-engineered and modified. 

Security Practices Implemented During Mobile Application Development

VDC data shows that while basic security needs are being met, there are still considerable gaps that remain and need to be addressed, as we have highlighted in previous blogs. This is a pain point for many enterprises and an opportunity for companies like Apperian, especially as development costs continue to rise. Adopting and utilizing tools to help ensure that mobile Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) best practices are being used will be critical for organizations as they pursue broader mobile enablement initiatives. Moving forward, sophisticated QA techniques, along with strategic usage UAT processes can help to ensure that apps have been adequately protected from hackers will be required, as the cost of security breaches can be enormous, not only in dollars but also in lost time, productivity, and an overall feeling of organizational well-being.

 (With Eric Klein, Senior Analyst)

Cloud First - Mobile Second at SapphireNOW

Cloud First

SAP's CEO Bill McDermott and his broader executive team were consistent in their core message at this year's SAPPHIRE event; the main message: "Simplify everything. Do Anything." SAP's strategy is increasingly centered around cloud delivery, an integrated suite, and sreamlining customer support for large multi-national customers. There is no questioning the strategic importance of the in-memory database technology that SAP has been developing for the last decade. HANA has been front and center at SAPPHIRE since its release in 2010; and continuing to demonstrate the platforms' traction with customers will be key for SAP to prove their viabilty in the cloud computing market. Having long time (and marquee) customers such as John Deere, ConAgra Foods and eBay elegantly articulate their success with HANA certainly helps.

Suites Win — Simple beats Complex

There were several notable quotes I keyed in on during McDermott's keynote that kicked off the event. The first was regarding software suites, "In the end, the suite always wins. Always has. Always will." McDermott went on the diss the current crop of best-of-breed vendors insinuating they were commodity plays. However, a key reason that precludes best-of-breed vendors from "breeding" is they are typically acquired by vendors like SAP. While suites typicall do win in large organizations, IT modernization is long overdue amongst many of SAP's core customers. McDermott sees HANA are the simplifier, and the way to deal with the "intractable CEO issue of our era" (complexity). SAP Fiori (revealed just last year at SAPPHIRE) will be a core element to reducing complexity; SAP will lead with Fiori, and announced that it will make the UX and SAP Screen Personas software free with underlying licenses of SAP software. The announcement was not a surprise, however, it is a positive move and will also help with mobile adoption within SAP's customer base.

In additon to "run simple" messaging, there were key product related announcements. SAP announced Simple Finance — a comprehensive and enterprise-grade finance solution based on SAP HANA. The offering covers the complete capabilities of the SAP Finance Value Map and will help to modernize aging financial applications through its more simplified, easily consumable, cloud based solution offering. SAP also made sure to showcase the newest member to its executive board, Bernd Leukert who with Vihsal Sikka's departure has global responsibility for the development and delivery of all products across SAP’s product portfolio including applications, analytics, cloud, database and technology, and mobile.

Mobile Second

I came across an excellent summary of SAPPHIRE at SAP's community network. If you are interested in a very detailed summary of announcements, I would suggest taking a look. What jumped out at me from the summary was the absence of mobile solutions. The empahsis at SAPPHIRE was definitely around the HANA platform and SAP's intentions with the cloud. However, Rick Costanzo, SAP's EVP and GM of mobile solutions is likely to change this. The BlackBerry veteran is well aware of SAP's mobile opporunity and is bullish on his company's outlook. SAP's 3.0 version of its mobile app development platform (SMP 3.0) looks as though it will become a core component to SAP's EMM solution (Mobile Secure) and can now be cosumed more easily than prior disparate SAP mobile development solutions components (SUP, Mobilzer, Agentry, etc.). SAP's mobile executives also provided me with a preview of Mobile Place, the company's portal to manage, secure and publish mobile apps. While on its surface, the solution appeared to be just an app store, I see it becoming more integrated with the company's mobile content management solution (mobile documents).

While mobile is too niche to be front and center a SAP's SAPPHIRE event, it will become more prominent moving forward. There is no question that many of SAP's large customer are investing in mobile solutions and I personally expect to see mobility being increasingly taken into consideration for a growing number of SAP's core ERP applcations — Fiori is just one of the first steps.

Poll

Click here to vote — when do you think that mobile will be the lead story at SAPPHIRE? 

Google Acquires Divide to Enhance Android’s Enterprise Cred

Google made headlines earlier this week by finalizing an acquisition of Divide (formerly Enterproid); a company specializing in the internalization of a work container within an employee’s personal smartphone.Google has planned to incorporate the Divide feature to future Android releases, thereby strengthening the platforms’ enterprise capabilities as a whole. The acquisition will impact the ecosystem of vendors focusing on mobility management for the enterprise, and will give HW OEMs that compete with Samsung an opportunity to offer a well-integrated containerization solution along with their hardware. The move by Google also portends to a more strategic focus (albeit late) on the enterprise market.

Similar to other popular containerization solutions, Divide’s secure workspace separates employees’ personal and business use on an individual smartphone while simultaneously preserving the experience that users expect. Container solutions such as Divide offer an elegant way to give users the ability to use their device the way they are accustomed to without the threat of privacy issues, and more importantly, give IT administrators flexible and powerful tools for administrative oversight as well as granular policy control for their corporate data and applications.

Is Android Finally Ready for the Enterprise?

Does this mean that Android is now completely enterprise-friendly? The move certainly strengthens the platform’s viability, particularly when considering the enterprise capabilities that have been integrated into the most recent Android releases (Jellybean and KitKat). Additionally, depending on how Google decides to integrate Divide and how easy OEMs can customize it, Divide will potentially give HW OEMs new ways to approach business customers. With Apple’s recent production of iOS7, Apple could fill the enterprise mobility void left by BlackBerry. With no major fragmentation concerns (~80% of iOS users are on iOS7), Apple’s walled-garden approach and its reputation for proactive responses to malware threats has served it well. While Apple was dragged into the enterprise, it has clearly been embraced by large organizations and accepted as a secure mobile platform. EMM and mobile security vendors have created very powerful solutions that have made Android a very secure platform – however, without these third-party solutions, the platform would not be gaining the traction in enterprise settings that we have seen since the 4.2 release.

The Debate will Persist – To Secure the Device and/or the Data

Containerization, unfortunately, is not a black-and-white solution. Although it can potentially allow for more employee privacy through less IT supervision, containerization can easily be described as an incomplete solution (depending on the use case). While containerization solutions separate applications and data between personal and corporate use, they do not provide the enhanced security, granular policy controls, asset management functions, or provisioning capabilities that an integrated solution from an EMM vendor can provide. However, containerization and app virtualization (a topic for a future blog) are changing the dynamics of the competitive landscape. We expect the “securing the data vs. the device” debate to persist – but we see containerization as only one element of the holistic enterprise solution (one that will not replace MDM, but add to it).

Everyone Has a Container – Can Divide be the De Facto Android Container?

Containerization has become a central solution component to almost every vendor participating in the enterprise mobility market. AT&T’s Toggle, BlackBerry’s Balance (both powered by OpenPeak), Excitor, Fixmo, Good, and Samsung (KNOX), along with almost every EMM vendor, have all incorporated containerization into their solution portfolios. While these vendors can all “play” in the iOS ecosystem, Android has been the platform of choice on which to differentiate. With its acquisition of Divide, Google may have an opportunity to make Divide the de facto containerization solution for Android (if HW OEMs play ball). We anticipate that Divide will be integrated into future Android releases, and we will be carefully watching if and how Google “opens up” the Divide platform. Samsung has been masterful in attracting enterprise-oriented vendors to work with its KNOX platform – while KNOX has been slow to take off; aggressive marketing and extensive media coverage have made Samsung the most visible enterprise-grade handset OEM. To its credit, Samsung has integrated and co-opted Android and effectively has made it an extension of its hardware by incorporating significant device-side capabilities at the chipset level. HW OEMs that compete with Samsung will need to do the same, and Google has an opportunity to enable them to do so. Google’s acquisition of Divide is an important and necessary step forward if the company wants to further its enterprise strategy – however, it is just one step.

(Research and contributions by Natalie Buckner)

Event Recap ― IBM Impact

VDC had the opportunity to attend IBM’s Impact event in Las Vegas last week ― the event was well attended (~9,000 attendees) and featured hundreds of breakout sessions that spanned a broad range of technologies. A key theme at the event was what the company described as its ability to help companies become “composable businesses”.

The company's keynote speakers were very much in sync with this message and articulated how IBM was positioned to provide its customers with a path to transform their business and help them embrace the “ecosystem of everything.” Throughout Impact, IBM showcased how it had expanded its portfolio of cloud-oriented solutions with analytics, big data and mobile solutions and how customers could benefit from the ecosystem of innovation it has assembled. The company's message: it can provide the flexibility and speed that are required to overcome the challenges which every business will ultimately face as the shift to digital services impacts their IT infrastructure. This building block approach will enable customers to piece together what’s needed quickly and effectively to solve rapidly changing business problems. IBM identifies four service types in this environment:

• Infrastructure services such as those from Softlayer
• Business services in the more general SaaS portfolio
• Defined pattern services such as its PureApplication services
• Composable services (PaaS) such as BlueMix

MobileFirst and Customers Front and Center

IBM's MobileFirst GM Marie Wieck talked about design thinking, and the need to train development teams to think first about engaging with mobile. She identified several success factors for mobile enablement that were on point:

• Mobile interactions will increasingly transition to mobile transactions
• Must support secure, effective, real-time transactions not just interactions
• Not just mobile analytics, also customer analytics
• Use mobile analytics to improve outcomes whenever possible
• Must be iterative and rapidly evolve applications
• Business rules are required to iterate business logic

There were some great examples of mobile enablement scenarios which featured prominent customers and partners that tied well to Wieck’s success factors. Tangerine Bank discussed how they use technology to redefine and simplify banking for their customers. Tangerine shared details on how it has raised the bar in mobile banking and has transformed into a mobile-first bank (key product enhancements mentioned were voice activation and offline access).  In working with IBM, the company was able to shorten its mobile development cycle using IBM's PureApplication System. Tangerine was able to quickly develop, test and deploy repeatable patterns, access the Worklight programming environment, use Bluemix for testing and QA, and take advantage of the API catalog to manage their internal services.

IBM's SVP of Software and Cloud Solutions Robert LeBlanc cited Tangerine as an example of the shift to a completely digital economy where companies are increasingly using mobile and cloud for computing, unbundling their business offerings and where new “killer apps” have the potential to disrupt any industry.

In this vein, IBM made sure that the most visible announcement out of Impact was its marketplace. The company has curated a site that is designed to pull IBM and third party services into solutions to help customers easily find them. Solutions range from standard business, development and operational services (new SaaS and composable services on BlueMix and Softlayer will be a focus going forward). This capability was required when considering the new style of purchasing that many companies are starting to engage in, and gives IBM a mechanism to help its partners gain influence.

Still a Long Road for Many to True Mobile Enablement

IBM was also intent on demonstrating that its products can work well together, and how it can transition organizations from legacy data centers to a modern IT architecture. The company spoke about how it is beginning to see evidence within its larger customers that mobility is becoming more strategic with more senior sponsors getting involved (something that we’ve all been waiting to see). In response, IBM has taken a managed services approach to best position themselves to help quickly (a wise move given the company's Global Services capabilities). The company has also been focused on training its business process consultants and partners on its MobileFirst solution portfolio to make sure that process solutions are being mobilized if and when the opportunity presents itself. IBM's industry specific Ready Apps were also showcased ― these starter kits will be useful and can definitely help customers accelerate their mobile enablement initiatives.

While many organizations are certainly striving to modernize their infrastructure and are in the process of iterating and re-architecting their business processes the reality is that logistics networks, supplier relationships, product and service design and customer service have and will continue to be in a state of flux. Any path to sustainable competitive advantage will require a high degree of operational adaptability. IBM certainly has assembled a portfolio of products and services that can help, but engraining mobile solutions into their workflows and business processes will take time, and getting key stakeholders within lines of business, IT leaders and developers to collaborate is difficult.

IBM has enhanced its opportunity in the enterprise with its MobileFirst initiative, with key acquisitions (Cloudant, Fiberlink, SoftLayer, and Worklight) figuring prominantly; however, significant integration work remains. IBM must demonstrate to its customers that it can help to simplify and streamline app development by mobilizing existing apps (backend integration) and help to build next generation apps.