The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I’ve seen that road before
It always leads me here
Lead me to your door.The Beatles – ‘Let It Be’ 1970
As prophetic as the Beatles were, who knew that in 1970 they could predict the importance of enterprise mobility? A long and winding road – that will lead (your customers) to your door. It’s thought that When Paul McCartney was writing about the consternation within the Beatles 
at the time – but could he have been writing about the volatility and uncertainty that would be enterprise mobility market of 2011?
How many times have you moved down the road of a project and thought to yourself ‘if only I had realized this at the beginning…’ We’ve all been there. If we look backward, we see a string of decisions which have determined where we are today.
There are many reasons to look back on the past and realize there are things you would have done differently. Would you have made different decisions if you were aware of all the facts as they exist today? If so, what changes would you have made?
For those of you that have read my posts in the past – you’ve heard me on this theme before. But it’s amazing how I continue to find large enterprise customers who are entering into project based mobility with short sited goals and a lack of enterprise focus. This is usually also accompanied by a lack of consideration for the dynamism of the marketplace which is driven by many factors.
With enterprise mobility, there really is no way to have all the facts before you start a project. The state of the device market is shifting so rapidly that it’s impossible to predict the future, as the infrastructure becomes more powerful does mobile web make sense for more critical functions and the world of smart phones and tablets are blurring. I’ve even run across corporate executives who have considered going back to ‘feature phones’ with a tablet companion for their field teams.
Think back 2 years ago – there were many who were predicting the demise of all mobile platforms other than Apple stating that the iPhone would be the defacto mobile technology. Then Android has come on strong and sales of Android driven devices have exceeded iPhones in recent fiscal quarters. And the impact of the Microsoft/Symbian partnership could have profound impact on the future.
We have the same dynamic taking place in the tablet market with the iPad and the Android competitors such as the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy. And the newly announced Motorola Atrix promises to be a smartphone that can be docked to a key board and monitor to power a laptop like device – in essence assuring that you have all of your computing power in your pocket at all times. Isn’t that the true promise of mobile computing back to the days of the first Palm and Handspring PDAs?
Just this week, I had an executive at a Fortune 500 company tell me that in his opinion, Windows Phone 7 would cease to exist within 24 months, and that he felt that BlackBerry was also at risk of irrelevance. These are his opinions – and they are coloring the decisions making process for his company. Do you want to gamble your direction on these types of opinions?
Forget the crystal ball. Lay the foundation for the future. Look for ways to meet the mobile needs of all your mobile customers (both internal and external), regardless of device or the manner in which they access content (mobile web or native application) with as much centralized control as possible. Mobility is not a project – it’s a strategy.
Making the right choice now is predicated on hedging your bets and understanding that the run of changes and dynamics is a long road. Buckle up, enjoy the ride and prepare for the future.
Ensure that as an organization, you are incorporating a Mobility Center of Excellence and equipping them with the tools to react to the needs of the business. This does not mean allowing individuals or singular business units to write one-off apps on a project basis which are beholden to a singular mobile technology.
The proper approach is one that is holistic in its perspective. Admitting that in today’s consumer driven mobility marketplace that we just can’t predict the winner and losers, but realizing that you can hedge your bets. Consider the end user, consider the ever changing devices and admit that none of us really know where this market is headed. All we do know is that it will be a long and winding road which hopefully will deliver customers to your door.
∞
Tags: Android, Beatles, Business Mobility, Enterprise Mobility, Human Centered Mobility, Increase Customer Satisfaction, iPad, iPhone, Long and Winding Road, Matt Torgersen, Microsoft, Mobile Apps, Mobile Web, Paul McCartney, Tablets, Windows Phone 7, WP7
