With most pundits having declared that the tech recession is over in corporate IT spending (click here for Forrester’s case or check out Cisco’s latest results), I thought that it would be good to reflect on the impact of the recession on the enterprise mobility market. Largely the recession has been very challenging for many businesses and individuals. But, in my opinion, there have been some sustentative positives for enterprise mobility from this pause in growth. These positives primarily stem from either an increased pace of innovation and a refocus of IT resources on some critical, but taken for granted areas of mobile computing.
1. Taking Inventory
Most IT shops stopped all but essential capital spending in 2009 and aimed their freed up human capital to find even further savings. In the arena of mobile computing, the first step was creating a solid inventory and analysis of mobile assets. Given that the future is more mobile and less office bound, this intelligence will be critical to managing and securing the overall business. So, the naval gazing of the recession period has helped businesses realize that yesterday’s solutions to desktop management and security need to be updated for the increasingly mobile landscape.
2. Timely Cloud Cover
The recession has brought cost effectiveness into nearly all decisions in our personal lives and certainly every decision by IT executives. While in years past, achieving lower costs would have to be solved by vendor negotiations, headcount reductions, searching for scale, and consolidating operations, in 2009, the vendor community brought real technical innovation to the table in the form of proven and effective cloud computing and software-as-a-service solutions.
There is an emerging set of cloud-based, mobility management platforms that can manage all of a business’ remote and virtual assets, as if they were still attached to traditional LANs. More so, this class of solution helps solve the visibility gap identified above, but providing reliable and accurate inventory and assessment of mobile devices anywhere, anytime on the corporate network or on the public Internet cloud.
3. Refreshing PCs
The recession stopped the corporate PC refresh cycle. (The PC market had a horrible year in 2009 and just managed to eek out 2.8 percent growth in shipments, which was driven by a consumer led 22 percent increase in 4Q buying. ) I don’t know about you, but in the age of the iPhone, I’m really not that upset that I didn’t get that Thinkpad T60 to replace my aging laptop.
But, now, it looks like with the thawing of IT spending and the availability of Windows 7 (see #4 below), the great corporate PC refresh will get underway in 2010. And the pickings and prices couldn’t be better by historical standards.
4. Hello Windows 7
Enough said. Good riddance tech recession and thanks for taking Vista with you.
5. Closer and Closer to a Free Lunch
Obviously, the foundation of enterprise mobility is wireless Internet access. And, the belt tightening and fierce competition during the tech recession has made getting connected very affordable. Wi-Fi at Starbucks was $9.99 going into the downturn and is only $3.99 now. Mobile broadband (3G, HSDPA, 4G, etc.) was $40-60 per month going into the downturn and now you can add laptop tethering to your Blackberry for $15 per month. And, to top it all off, AT&T announced that they will offer “no contract” data plans for Apple’s iPad starting at $15 per month. No more 2-year contract.
2010 will be a year for growth, though it might start off as a slow growth. IT departments now know how to get healthier and stay in control. Thanks to 2009, they realize mobility is easier than ever with cloud computing, great devices, great prices, and connectivity for the price of a few lattes… who said recessions are all that bad?
Jim Szafranski is SVP of Customer Platform Services at Fiberlink. He also is a contributor to MaaS360 blog and the Mobility Crowd online resource and blog for mobile IT professionals. He also contributed to the discussion on how cloud computing is changing the mobile landscape in the SIIA Mobility Webinar Series recorded in December 2009. Jim can be reached at jszafranski@fiberlink.com.