CES Serves as Early Warning System for Enterprise IT Planners

NEWS ANALYSIS: It’s true that the major players, including Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon, appear to be sitting out this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. But CES still serves as a valuable early warning system for what enterprises will be dealing with in 2013.

Not all of your users will know what to do with this interface, and while Windows 8 with a touch-screen is vastly more intuitive than it is with a mouse and keyboard, there’s still a learning curve.

The other trend that’s showing up is the tendency to have more devices do more things. Smartphones are much more than just phones. They’ve always had the ability to handle messaging, and nearly all work as cameras. But now you can expect mobile devices that can manage your network and even serve as network infrastructure devices that also provide visibility into your network assets and operations. This means, among other things, that some of the new WiFi routers can give access to devices that previously didn’t have it. So with the right router from Netgear or Cisco, your iPads can access network storage services that were previously unavailable.

Such new capabilities can add a great deal of flexibility to your company’s mobile devices, but they also add a new level of security concerns. If something as simple as changing a router can provide this access, then you need to make sure your security planning takes this into account.

Likewise, the wholesale shift to mobile computing platforms that’s clearly evident at CES this year promises to have a significant impact on your enterprise. Like it or not, you will need to be prepared for a more mobile future. This will have a profound effect on your security, of course, but it will also have a huge effect on how your employees work. This new focus on mobility can, if handled correctly, make your employees more productive and improve their morale.

But you also run the risk of losing control of your data. In addition to the security aspects, you will no longer be absolutely sure of where most of your current data resides. You can limit that risk by having a means of access to your network from anywhere—a cloud solution, in other words. But you still run the risk of not having access to the latest activity on the part of your employees. How will you know that one of your sales staff has just landed a multi-million dollar deal when their laptop computer doesn’t have a connection to the company servers?

Ultimately, the changes at CES and other major events will bring great opportunities to the enterprise, but you have to do your part, which is to be ready for them when those opportunities present themselves. At least with CES and other shows, you have the possibility of an early warning. You just have to be ready to see that warning and take advantage of it.