A few weeks back, Microsoft provided a glimpse at their new Windows 8 operating system. One of the most notable features was the new user interface.
Windows 8 will feature Microsoft’s Metro user interface. Users of the company’s Zune and Windows Phone 7 products should feel right at home since this is the user interface they have grown accustomed to. On the surface, this demonstrates how Microsoft is attempting to make their flagship operating system touch and gesture friendly for tablets.
Beneath the surface, however, this highlights a much bigger developing trend: the blurring of lines between endpoints. This is of paramount significance to enterprise IT departments.
Why? Because enterprise IT is wired to look at the devices based on the form factor. By default, they tend to put desktops and laptops, and their associated applications and data in one bucket, and mobile devices, mobile apps and mobile data in another bucket. Recent changes in operating systems highlight the fallacy of that ‘default’ logic and show how all these ecosystems are converging. Let’s take a closer look how this convergence is taking place and why enterprise IT should care.
Endpoints: Though it may be easy to put today’s tablets in the mobile device category, the same conclusion will be much tougher to make when Windows 8 tablets come out next year. Physically, it will look more like a mobile device, but when powered up it will have all the functionality of a corporate desktop or laptop. Industry experts expect similar convergence of other popular computing platforms as well. With the onset of these changes, IT can no longer use form factor to determine how they manage devices. From an ownership perspective, BYOD might be more popular on the mobile front, but personal laptops in use within enterprises are not uncommon and we will continue to see more diversity moving forward. So, the strategies around ‘consumerization’ cannot be restricted to one form factor alone.
Applications: The highly successful app store model is moving from mobile operating systems to desktop platforms as well. At least two popular operating system vendors already have app stores for mobile devices as well as traditional endpoints, and Windows 8 will have an app store as well. As these app stores become the default application management paradigm, these vendors might very well decide to converge their app stores for mobile devices and traditional endpoints. Enterprises will have to react by providing application management frameworks regardless of endpoint type.
Data: With the cloud movement in full swing, users are capable of accessing the same data across all their devices. As such it no longer makes sense for enterprises to simply focus on securing endpoints. Protecting the data itself, no matter which device it ends up on, with information protection technologies is now more critical than ever. As regulatory requirements are the same irrespective of the location of data and the form of access, organizations need to look beyond the type of device and enforce these requirements.
There is a simple concept that is sometimes lost on IT, and that is that the backend should follow the frontend. Based on endpoint, application and data demands, the IT backend has to evolve and support. That isn’t music to the IT teams’ ears, but users now know that they have a choice, and that can’t be taken back. What will make this seismic shift easier for IT – and in turn make them more efficient – is a guiding strategy that integrates these seemingly desperate devices:
- If the same data protection needs and data loss prevention requirements apply to traditional computing platforms and mobile devices, then there should be an efficient way to accomplish both without recreating policies and compliance visibility processes.
- If the same asset management, application management and helpdesk needs exist across all platforms, then there should be an efficient way to simultaneously accomplish these across all corporate-connected devices.
- If the same teams in IT are entrusted with strategic- and tactical-level tasks and processes for both traditional computing platforms and mobile devices, then they should have shared tools and common processes for both.
All enterprises understand and want the unified and integrated IT described above, but they think of it as utopian, maybe something for the future. Fortunately, that future is here and, with a little help from Symantec, companies can execute just such an end-to-end IT strategy.