"Consumerization" of IT is here."

This morning, I heard that from Laurent Philonenko of Cisco at this AM's WES session.

Employees are being given the choice of what device they want to use for mobile access. In most cases, businesses no longer pay for the bill or at best, reimburse some of the cost. For example, we know of a business that reimburses $30 towards an employee's data plan if they use their own Blackberry. They started off by providing employees with a corporate liable device which only had DATA service, no voice. Employees didn't want to carry 2 devices so the personally-liable devices were introduced to the enterprise and are now supported on the BES.

To support "Consumerization", I am researching apps that will track business vs personal use of a device based upon tags on address book entries, i.e. all email, sms or calls to and from jsmith@clientx.com will be tagged as business related and can be reported on. This will allow businesses to see exactly what percentage of usage they are actually reimbursing employees for. It sounds labor intensive but firms that currently bill-back time to their clients (lawyers, engineers) will love this approach.
Also, any company that is mandated to look at saving costs in the corporate liable model will be able to see if they are getting their "money's worth". They can also make an quantitative decision regarding the rate of payout for corporate liable devices. For example, if the reports show that you are using your device on a 60/40 business/personal rate, then the company will continue to pay for your device. However, if the rate is 40/60, you may be converted to the personal liable plan with a 40% reimbursement or no reimbursement at all.

If these types of "usage tracking" apps interest you, let me know. We are looking for pilot groups that will allow us to deploy the tracking tools for 3 months so we can analyze the reports and share them in our white-paper on personal vs. corporate devices that we are developing. We will pay for the apps along with the services to load and train your users.

Let me know your thoughts!!

Lon

BES Express Update

I misstated earlier. BES Express CAN support over the air(OTA) enterprise activations (EA) if the device is on a BES data plan. If the device is only on a BIS data plan then it cannot do an EA; the option will not even exist on the device.

I asked RIM if they thought the carriers would find a way to "up-charge" on the BIS like they do with BES. The RIM guy said that it is not possible in the RIM network to do that. The carriers will probably be happy that a BIS device on BES Express will actually generate more data in the long run as the user moves from push email only to full sync of email, calendar, address book and all the other features that BES with MDS brings.

NOTE: MDS is supported on BES Express but not MVS.....mobile voice services. It took me 2 days to finally have someone clarify that they were saying "V" and not "D".

I also clarified a user limit issue. The rumor was that BES Express could only support 75 users. That is false. It is "recommended" that if you install/run BES Express on the same server as your mail server(Exchange Server or SBS Server), then you "should" only put 75 servers on it.
If you run it on it's own hardware, either real or virtual (VMWare), you are not limited by the number of users it can support. In that instance, the number is the same as with the standard BES. A company can now expand their BES usage and offer the BES solution to "personally liable" devices; devices that users pay for out of their own money.

I will have another post discussing a round-table discussion that I participated in regarding Personal vs. Corporate Liable devices.

NOTE: We have already starting piloting BES Express. I installed it in our test environment last weekend but have not added any users. I will say that if you plan to install in on the mail server or SBS server, you should NOT install the Administration Service (BAS) on there unless you have a "beefy" server. I will quantify that in the next few weeks. Running BAS spiked my CPU so I plan to install in on its own box but will keep BES Express on SBS.

Lon

BES Xpress

BES Xpress...it doesn't have Enterprise Activation over the air, but if you normally do the EAs for your users anyway, its a no brainer. Use the 5.0 WEB Desktop Manager or tether to the server to activate. You'll have their device for an hour tops! I'm sure they'll live.
Also, no more carrier up-charges for BES since it uses BIS. I'll have more info after 2morrow's session but I have a few customers that I know will expand their Blackberry device count since BES Xpress software and CALs are free. Lon

Chalk Pushcast Software

Check out their demo

This app pushes multimedia content to the Blackberry using their server and their app that sits on the device.

It can be used for training on other Blackberry apps or for HR new employee intros. The helpdesk can use it to show users how to perform certain tasks on their Blackberrys.

Pretty cool app. You can control who gets the content, when they get it and when it expires. The content cannot be forwarded and with SD card excryption, cannot be copied to another device. There is a web client so that content can be created once and delivered to both Blackberry and non-Blackberry users.

The content is created in PowerPoint using a Chalk add-in and supports embedded audio and video.

They claim that payback is quite short.
I'll check the pricing out and get back to you guys.

Lon

Unrelated Windows 7 Trick

This is unrelated but I was working on a proposal on my Windows 7 laptop last night and accidentally pressed Tab and the Windows key. What a cool effect. Perhaps I was the only one that did not know that trick. LOL

BlackBerry 6 sneak peak at WES 2010

Just found a cool app at WES. Vlingo brings speech commands to the Blackberry. It is a free download on AppWorld. It also reads incoming text and email and for a one-time $20 fee will allow you to dictate email and text messages. Stay tuned for my review as I compare it to Drive Safe.ly. Lon

WES Announcements

I am headed to the Solution Showcase at WES 2010.
Aside from the food and fun, there is sure to be some great products.
It normally takes me 3 days to visit all the vendor booths that interest me.

If you are looking for a specific product or solution, reply to this post and I will research it for you.
In the meantime, check this out!

WES 2010 starts today for partners with the Alliance Summit. We get a first look at the future of Blackberry before the customers.

On my way to WES 2010 in less than 48 hours..Lon