So another CTIA…big crowds, lots of tablets. The lists and reviews of current new tablets on the block (especially those from Samsung) are easily found elsewhere. What I find most intriguing about the entire next tablet wave is that none of them has managed to get the ‘design’ right. Not a single company has managed to apply the same level (or even remotely close to it) of Apple UI and design capabilities to their new devices. On an individual by individual consumer basis Apple will dominate. Some financial analysts now even believe Apple can actually more than double revenue to $200B (see for example,  http://yhoo.it/fQIxxv).

There is a lot of noise made everywhere about the need to compete on price points to ‘beat’ Apple. However, Apple has by and large eliminated the price point discussion. Pricing will have nothing to do with the number of iPad 2s that will be sold in 2011 and beyond – or with the number of iPad 2s that aren’t sold in 2011. It is the entire collective user experience that will drive Apple’s consumer sales to Mt. Everest heights while the entire rest of the pack are still trying to climb the local hill.

If, as an enterprise, you buy into the argument that consumers bringing their own hardware into the workplace is today’s reality, you have to factor that into your longer term mobile planning. Line of business people and marketing and advertising teams will have no trouble with this – they will design many cool apps, then simply hand off the plans to enterprise IT to make it a reality.

If enterprise IT, in turn, has done its mobile homework and understands mobile realities (especially mobile security issues, back end connectivity, mobile-driven SaaS, and longer term mobile app development issues) it will drive the enterprise to build its ‘foundation’ mobility initiatives on a mobile application platform (such as Antenna’s Mobility Platform – AMP). In addition, enterprises can make use of technology such as Antenna’s Volt to also get around the limitations (among other things) of publishing their apps through an App store (today that means either Apple or Android). The tools exist today to make these things happen. Today there is no excuse for enterprise IT to not have the software side of mobile planning initiatives figured out.

Leverage Employee Hardware? Really?

Then there is the hardware side of the equation. Do enterprises really believe that the right path is to leverage their employees’ hardware? I’m very much not convinced that enterprise IT wouldn’t like to gain a little control back over this. In fact, a few IT folk I’ve spoken with over the last few months would absolutely prefer to regain control – especially control over tablets – which could conceivably become far more heavily used as enterprise tools than smartphones – far more data, more ‘enterprise’ critical mobile apps. Etc.

So then, if we cede Apple the consumer market – because as I say above, no one is winning the design wars against Apple (I should say design + Garageband + iMovie + …) – that still leaves the huge enterprise market – for which Apple has no real game plan – wide open. And in this space it isn’t the ‘alternative hardware vendors to Apple’ who hold the aces. It is enterprise IT itself that holds them and can use them to drive some powerful tablet deals for itself (and in the process drive smartphone deals as well).

I’ve focused a few posts over the last several months on the need for enterprises to negotiate/renegotiate wireless data contracts with the carriers. Here I’m strongly suggesting that now is also the perfect time to get into deep discussions with Dell, Samsung, RIM (which had been known to give hardware away back in the day it made money from its email services), HTC and especially HP (dare I add Nokia/Microsoft?) – every one of these vendors MUST focus on heavily seeding the enterprise market with their mobile devices (in particular their tablets) if they are to make any serious enterprise headway. Grab the bull by the horns and land yourself a great volume hardware deal today!

If you do you will be able to pass along significant savings to your workforce. Add in renegotiated wireless data plans (possibly if not likely in conjunction with your hardware deals) and your workforce will completely forget about bringing their own gadgets to the office. IT can indeed regain control of its enterprise hardware. In an earlier post I referenced an iPass study that suggests employees love the idea of enterprise-subsidized data plans. Add the hardware component to the mix and complete the virtuous circle for both your employees and your enterprise IT team. Negotiate and take control.

∞

Tags: Android, Apple, Business Mobility, Enterprise Mobility, Mobile Devices, Mobile Observatory, Tablets, Tony Rizzo