- of
10 Ways Android Will Change Enterprise IT
by Eric Lundquist
The Triumph of Mobile Computing
and the Millenniums
Business applications will be built with mobile in mind from the start and will have to have the look and feel of consumer applications. Android will accelerate this trend.
Ad-Based Services
Google knows how to garner billions of dollars from serving ads next to search. Now Google can offer ad-based services for mobile users based on apps that can actually also provide developers with a way to earn some bucks for their efforts.
The Rise of the New Corporate Application Developer
Developing or rewriting corporate apps for mobile use can be geologically slow. That will change as those app developers who earned their chops writing Apple and Android apps start looking toward the business world. Writing business apps has one great advantage: Companies will actually pay you money to write good apps. These mobile app developers will challenge a lot of in-house app teams.
The Rise of Reverse Business Intelligence
If you make mobility the central focus of your IT organization, you can now start to collect real-time customer interaction into your database. Rather than the slow process of data analysis and reports that marks a lot of BI today, your entire work force becomes the source of BI data that is (or should be) made instantly available to everyone in your company.
A Big Challenge for Microsoft
Microsoft still makes its margins and hefty profits in the business world. It needs to come up with a better mobile product than both the iPhone and Android.
A Big Opportunity for Smaller Companies
The companies that are the fastest to recognize and adapt to the mobile enterprise opportunity can win market share and revenues. The big enterprise organizations are at risk in moving too slowly, especially as the economy rebounds.
The End of Offices
Mobility reduces the need for big corporate and branch offices. I'm not sure I'd want to be in the corporate real estate business right now. Mobility requires new applications but also a new way of organizing companies and projects.
Rethinking Security
Security vendors have not been at the forefront of recognizing the impact of mobile computing and the mobile enterprise. They should be seen as enablers of mobility instead of reasons to proceed slowly.
The Googlization of the Tech Space
If Android becomes a big deal, it will be because Google has figured out a way to recast not just the technology, but the mobile business as well. If Google can free the user from carrier lock-in, as well as video and audio digital encumbrance, and open up search and location to Google-based apps, Google could become the way we all compute. BTW, I'm not too sure that is a good thing.
The Smartphone That Ate the World
Smartphones have been causing havoc for business computing hardware, GPS devices, land-line and limited-function cell phones, and nearly every other tech device the smartphone can imitate or move to mobility. It's tough to see this trend slowing down at all.
IT Management News & Reviews 
Cloud Data Backup Now Makes Sense for SMBs: 10 Reasons Why 
HP, Lenovo, Asus Laptops, Desktops Offer Consumer Style for Busin[..]
Microsoft`s F#: 10 Reasons Why It`s a Hot Programming Language fo[..]
Data Center Efficiency: 10 Tips to Boost Productivity, Reduce Pow[..]
iPhone Apps to Kick Off the 2012 Summer Season 
Email Security: 10 Steps for Dealing With Dangerous Messages
See All Slideshows
I'll be the first to put my hand up and admit that I underestimated the impact of the initial iPhone launch. In fact, I may be the only one who will actually say I thought the difficulties of Apple marketing a mobile product with an unproven touch-screen interface and a lock into a single telecom carrier would produce a slow uptake instead of a big whoosh. In retrospect, the iPhone not only reset the thinking in the consumer space but has reset the thinking in the enterprise and business space as mobile computing, mobile app development and location-based services have upended the previously staid world of enterprise IT.
So what does Google's introduction of an Android smartphone indicate for the business world? Here's my top 10 list.