New mobility products: What do they mean to your SMB?

by Deb Shinder | Mar 05, 2007 8:00:00 AM

Tags: Smart phones, Telecom & Utilities, Handhelds, Cellular phones, LetÂ, small and medium business, mobility, WhatÂ, Deb Shinder, phone, smart phone, handheld computer, handheld computer phone, handheld, SMB Strategies Newsletter

Takeaway: Here's a look at some of the new products that SMBs are likely to see their workers carrying and using, and how you can integrate them into your network environment to enhance productivity without compromising security.

Big companies are big on mobile devices, and can afford to provide their employees with handheld computers or smart phones so that workers can carry their jobs along with them in their pockets. E-mail, important documents, the Web: almost everything they have on their desktops can go along with them wherever they happen to be.

Small and midsize companies may be working with more limited budgets. That means if workers want to stay connected, they have to pay out of their own pockets for the equipment and services. And as being connected becomes more and more of a necessity in today's business world, many of them are doing just that.

The problem is that this results in a diversity of mobile products in use that aren't configured or controlled by the company. Yet those employees will expect the IT department to be able to support them so they can get their company e-mail, connect back to the company network via VPN, and otherwise utilize their fancy communications devices to help them do their work.

Let’s take a look at some of the new products that SMBs are likely to see their workers carrying and using, and how you can integrate them into your network environment to enhance productivity without compromising security.

Phones are getting smarter

This year’s smartphones are more sophisticated than ever. Even the most basic mobile phones these days seem to have some "smart" applications. Many also include MP3 players, cameras and a variety of other entertainment features.

Some smart phones are smarter than others. Those that run the Palm OS or Windows Pocket PC/Windows Mobile operating systems are actually full fledged handheld computers with built in mobile phone capability. Examples include the Samsung SCH-i730 (which my husband and I both use in our own small business), the newer Samsung BlackJack, the Motorola Q, the Palm Treo phone, the Cingular 8525, the Verizon XV6700, and not-yet-released models such as the Samsung SCH-i760 "Office Communication" (reported by Samsung representatives at CES to be available sometime next summer). Then there are the various Blackberry models.

Some of the wireless providers call their handheld computer phones "PDA phones," but this is a bit of a misnomer since almost all of today’s mobile phones, even the "dumb" ones, have basic PDA functionality: contacts lists, calendars, task lists, and so forth.

What’s the difference between a smart phone and a handheld computer phone? Definitions differ, and in some cases the distinction is hard to make. Some divide the devices based on whether or not they have QWERTY keyboards. Here’s how I draw the line: a full fledged handheld computer phone, like other computers, allows you to install third party software. With smartphones, you’re stuck with the software provided by the phone vendor. And that makes the recently announced Apple iPhone, even if it does run a mobile version of OS X, "just" a smartphone.

Whereas smartphone users can retrieve e-mail and surf the Web, handheld computer phone users can do much more: create and edit Word documents and Excel spreadsheets, and even connect to the company LAN via VPN and access their desktop computers using Remote Desktop/terminal services.

To determine whether a particular phone model is the best for your employees (or help them decide, if they’re buying their own), the first thing to consider is whether the phone is compatible with your email system. For example, if your company uses Exchange for email, it’ll be a lot easier for your IT admins and your employees if the devices they use support it.

Of course, there may be workarounds if a device doesn’t. For instance, if it has a Web browser, the user might be able to access Exchange email using Outlook Web Access (OWA) or re-direct copies of their messages to a Hotmail/Windows Live or other web-based account.

Dedicated PDAs: Don’t count them out yet

Although the integration of PDA and phone functionality appeals to many users, some still prefer to keep the two separate. Many business workers still carry dedicated PDA/handheld computing devices such as the various models of Palm Pilots and HP iPAQs, along with their simple cell phones.

Many of these devices have wireless networking capability so that they can connect to your company network (if you have wireless access points) or connect to the Internet from a wi-fi network and VPN into the company LAN.

If you have employees using these devices, they should be treated essentially the same as handheld computer phones.

What’s new with mobile operating systems

The operating systems that run on smartphones and handheld computers are getting more powerful and robust all the time, and offering a computing experience more and more like that of a "real" computer. Windows Mobile 2003 and Windows Mobile 5 provide a familiar Windows interface. With add-on programs such as iLauncher, you can put application and file icons on your tiny mobile desktop just as you have on your Windows desktop computer.

The next version of Windows Mobile (v6) makes the mobile user experience even more of a full computing experience. With WM6, users will be able to edit Office attachments, manage multiple email accounts and mail folders in Mobile Outlook, read HTML mail with tables, bullet lists, colored texts, etc. intact, set Out of Office messages, flag messages for follow-up, search messages stored on the Exchange server, send and receive documents and messages protected with Microsoft’s Information Rights Management (IRM), access files on the corporate Sharepoint sites from email links and keep their mobile data more secure by encrypting the SD card or even wiping the device remotely.

As devices with newer, more sophisticated operating systems become available, your IT department will need to be aware of and know how to support their new features.

Computers are getting smaller too

Even if your workers don’t have the sophisticated (and relatively expensive) phones that are capable of connecting to your network, many of them will have their own portable computers. Laptop/notebooks are getting smaller, more powerful and less expensive, making it more attractive for employees to buy their own if the company doesn’t provide portables for them.

And with the advent of Ultra Mobile Personal Computers (UMPCs) such as the Sony VAIO U series, the OQO 2, the Samsung Q1, the Asus R2H and more, portable computers are much easier for workers to take along no matter where they go. These tiny computers (most have displays that are 7 inches diagonal or smaller and weigh 2 pounds or less) run a full Windows client (XP or Vista) operating system.

Of course, a user who connects to your network with a portable computer -- whether from home, a hotel room or out in the field and whether it’s a traditional laptop, a subnotebook or a UMPC -- can do anything on the network that a worker at an on-site desktop can do, subject to your remote access policies. And remote users can pose threats to your SMB network, because you have less control over them and where they’ve been.

That’s why it’s a good idea to implement some sort of health status checks on the portables that log onto your network. With technologies such as Microsoft’s NAP or Cisco’s NAC, you can ensure that the portable computers connecting to your LAN have the proper service packs, security fixes, anti-virus software, anti-spyware software and personal firewalls to reduce the risk that they might introduce malware or serve as a conduit for attacks on your network.

Summary

SMBs may not have budgets that allow them to buy mobile devices for all their employees, but one way to benefit from the increased productivity that can come with mobility devices is to allow some or all of your workers to connect to use their personal devices to connect to the corporate LAN remotely. Although this can pose security risks, you can reduce those risks by imposing good use policies and using available technology to enforce them.