Business mobility is no longer the exclusive domain of traveling employees but is required of an increasing number of workers. Organisations have not grasped mobility as a real business opportunity because of doubts about security, cost, and manageability. But organisations are in the midst of a mobile revolution whether they officially sanction it or not, because the use of mobile applications, such as voice and email, has been driven from ordinary users, not strategy. The market is maturing beyond point solutions; mobile data access systems are emerging that will integrate with existing corporate infrastructures, enabling organisations to derive real business benefits from mobility.
Business is no longer confined to a worker’s desk, a workstation in a factory, or even the four walls of the workplace. Business is everywhere: the meeting room, customers’ and suppliers’ premises, home, the conference centre, Internet café, train, hotel, airport lounge, and even on the airplane itself. Nor is business constrained by conventional working hours. Increased competition along with the global nature of modern business has rendered the 9am to 5pm working day meaningless. Business is 24/7: while workers sleep in one time-zone, co-workers in another take up their tasks. The continuous and worldwide flow of business and the information that supports it means that work is becoming increasingly mobile.
Road warriors
Organisations have operated with teams of mobile workers, such as sales employees and delivery workers, for decades. Previously, mobile applications were confined largely to a select white-collar band of “road warriors”: executives whose value to their organisation is measured in the time they spend away from the office in face-to-face meetings with customers and other business collaborators.
Corridor surfers
But the speed at which modern business operates means that an increasing number of workers are behaving as if they were mobile workers. To the road warriors are added home workers and so-called “corridor surfers”: those whose role requires them to roam the organisation’s campus presenting, attending meetings, and communicating with colleagues from other parts of the business. Even though their job requires their presence in the same building every working day, many employees have to be able to promptly respond to business demands when they are away from their workstation, such as while commuting, in meetings, or at home. Corridor surfers, conducting business calls and answering email while walking from meeting to meeting on-campus, are a relatively new phenomenon. Literally, business cannot wait for these executives to finish their meetings and return to their desks: the decision has to be made instantly, the customer answered now, the information sent immediately. Economic and societal changes towards hot-desk policies and home-working have further increased the number of mobile and remote workers. Consequently, the number of employees fulfilling some aspect of their role in mobile and/or remote conditions has increased dramatically. Industry analysts at IDC estimate there were some 650 million mobile and remote workers in 2004. By 2009, that number is expected to increase to 850 million, or about one in four of the total global workforce.
Any company, regardless of size, business philosophy, or geographical location, can benefit from mobility. Remote and mobile access to primary business applications — voice, email, contacts, calendar, and essential databases (for example, price lists or delivery schedules) — can demonstrate significant improvements in flexibility and productivity and, in some cases, real cost savings.
Experience has shown that organisations increasingly depend on a growing army of mobile knowledge workers, such as consultants, sales people, traveling executives, and audit teams. It is recognised that these people are more productive when they have access to email and PIM (personal information manager) applications, such as a diary and contacts, while on the move. After voice, the first business data application that an organisation looks to mobilise is usually email.
Nokia strategy
Nokia strategy for its business customers is to enable collaboration among colleagues and trading collaborators by allowing people to connect using any device, over any network, to any corporate application or data source. To achieve this aim, interoperability is the key. Interoperability also impacts manageability:
A single extensible platform for mobile applications should present the user with a common interface for each application, regardless of the phone’s operating system or network choice. Not only can an intuitive common user interface for mobile applications increase productivity among mobile employees, but it can reduce the burden of training and support on IT as well.
Intellisync
The purchase of Intellisync by Nokia provides this capability: to support virtually all types of devices such as Palm, Symbian, and Windows Mobile and present the user with common menu structures. This capability will be vital when organisations move beyond the provision of mobile email and begin to mobilise other business processes, which will require communication with back-end corporate data sources and applications. Experience has shown that organisations want mobile application delivery systems that let handheld devices communicate directly and securely with application servers residing on the corporate network behind the firewall.21 percent of mobile
Security
Fear for the security of mobile data is one of the primary stumbling blocks to wider acceptance of mobility. Organisations need to be assured that mobile data is secure, for reasons of commercial confidentiality and to comply with national and international regulations governing the integrity and security of data. Organisations continually have to balance the conflicting demands to be flexible and open for business to grow, with the control and reliability required for business to be safe.
From an end-to-end perspective, mobile security can be divided into three key areas: mobile device security, connection security, and content security. Security within a mobile device entails both hardware and platform security. Hardware security enables the storing and execution of sensitive information and helps ensure that the device will only run valid software. For example, hardware can be used to detect unauthorised changes in the software. Platform security involves the management of services like the authorisation and authentication of software, which helps ensure that only verified applications can access protected resources. The platform also typically provides security services for the user and upper level applications such as application programming interfaces (APIs) that applications use to process encrypted data or to access hardware-based security services. It can also address usability issues related to security, such as how the user is prompted and what kind of prompts he or she is shown.
If a higher level of security is required than a device originally supports, then it is possible to deploy applications that can be used to further improve the security of the device. For instance, device management can be used to help ensure that a device has the correct settings, and that the device software is current. Add-on firewall, data encryption, and antivirus applications can be used to address other specific security concerns. Connection security refers to how different security functions can be performed on the network side, such as the detection of malicious content before it reaches the device. In the enterprise network, virtual private network (VPN) connectivity and management can be used to help ensure smooth and reliable access to enterprise resources.
Nokia E-series are advanced mobile devices that offer inherent secure features, having been built on the latest edition of the S60 platform. S60 3rd Edition, the world’s leading smart phone software platform provides the application environment for Nokia E-series phones such as E71, E66, E63, E75 and E55.
Nokia E-series devices offer built-in features as well as add-on applications such as email or browsing with mobile VPN. If the enterprise requires higher security, add-on applications can be installed and deployed on Nokia mobile devices Nokia E-series incorporate several features which, either alone or combined with third party solutions, allow companies and collaborators to design and deploy advanced wireless solutions securely. Nokia E-series are business-optimised devices. As a result, IT managers receive powerful tools to remotely control and protect corporate data on the device and configure devices via device wipe and device lock, or task management, application management, and customisation. The well-established competence in network security from Nokia addresses strict corporate requirements covering information stored on devices, back office systems, and network transmissions.
As mobile devices move from voice-centric devices to advanced voice and data tools, the ability to secure and manage them becomes critical from an IT perspective. Nokia is addressing mobile security and device management in a variety of ways.
User-controllable security and device management
In order to enhance corporate security, additional features have been added to Nokia E-series devices, which can be operated by end-users. The devices can be set to lock automatically after a predefined period. If a device gets lost, the data cannot be read from the device without entering the correct unlock code for the device. In addition, the memory card can be password-protected; even if the memory card is moved to another device, the card cannot be read. Nokia E-series devices also incorporate a special remote locking function. If a device is stolen, the user can send a special text message to lock the device against unauthorised use. For backing up user data from the device, users can employ Nokia PC Suite, which can be downloaded free of charge from Nokia Web pages. With this convenient software tool, users are able to synchronise their calendar and contacts from a PC.
Corporate device management
Mobile device management is becoming an increasingly important part of enterprise life as more add-on applications and software are installed on devices and as more devices have direct access to the corporate database. The corporate IT manager needs to have easy-to-use tools that allow him to get initial configurations to the devices in the most convenient way.
The table below summarises the key security features in E-Series Nokia phones.
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Feature
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Key benefit
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Phone lock
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Prevent unauthorised usage
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Data lock
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Protect your mobile data
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Remote locking
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Lock phone with a text message
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Memory card lock
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Password-protect files
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Call barring
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Restrict incoming or outgoing calls
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Certificates
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For secure transfer of confidential data
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