Reflections on Enterprise Connect '15: Forget "Mobile First," Try "Mobile Enablement"

Enterprise Connect has just wrapped up, and once again I had the honor of serving as chairman of the Mobility Track, which gave me the opportunity to work with some of the sharpest folks in the mobile space talking about some of the hottest subjects in enterprise mobility. While our Mobility Summit posed the question "'Mobile First'- Slogan or Strategy?" the real theme that emerged was "Mobile Enablement."

While the mobility world is charging ahead full steam, it was quite evident that the UC vendors are still struggling to deliver mobile solutions that users value (or even care about). In my Monday morning session this year titled Getting BYOD Right, I again asked the 100 or so companies in attendance if anyone was using the UC vendors' mobile clients - two hands went up. Both were Lync users, but the user adoption in each case was in the range of 5% of users.

We heard essentially the same story we heard from Peter Hale of MZA Ltd. and Tim Banting of Current Analysis in the UC Market: What's Hot, What's Not session. Peter broke out the types of devices users were employing to access UC services; mobile UC clients racked up about 7% of users. Overall, the traditional desk phone topped the device rankings with 56% of users and another 28% splitting time between a desk phone and a desktop soft phone; desktop softphones came in at only 9%, which I thought was rather low.

The one bright spot for mobile and UC is conferencing and collaboration apps, we learned in the What Enterprise Users Want in Mobile UC that I co-moderated with Robin Gareiss of Nemertes Research. That's not surprising given that users need to participate in conferences while mobile, so these fill a real need.

I fully expect that if the new social collaboration platforms like Cisco's Spark (formerly Project Squared), Unify's Circuit or Slack catch on, the mobile apps available for those catch on as well. The overall plan is to make those platforms the nexus for collaborative projects and as all of the correspondence and documentation related to the project will be stored there, users will need to stay connected to them while mobile. "User acceptance" is still the big cloud hanging over those initiatives.

For my money, one of the best sessions was What's Up With Enterprise Mobile Devices. This session has been in the program for several years, but we may need to change the title for next year. Rather than the mobile "wannabe's" from the UC camp, this year we actually had representatives from AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and AirWatch, all of whom are actually doing something in the mobile space.

The discussion started off on smartphones, tablets and wearables, but it quickly shifted from "devices" to "applications" - a far more interesting topic. While "Mobile UC" didn't pop up, each of the panelists had an application or two to contribute, all of which had real ROI impact.

The interesting thing was that as we talked through them, what became clear was that all of the apps being described addressed task workers as opposed to knowledge workers. For a decade or more, we have been equipping ticket takers, fork-lift operators, rental car check-in personnel, and other hard-working folk with mobile devices (often using hardened mobile computers). None of this impacted the more highly paid knowledge workers being targeted by the UC vendors.

Of course, those knowledge workers are getting their mobile requirement met, but with the UC capabilities inherent in their smartphones and augmented with apps downloaded from the public app stores. Those app store apps could be of the generic productivity variety, or apps developed by the independent software vendors (e.g. Salesforce, Oracle, McKesson, Cerner, etc.) allowing mobile access to their platforms.

Of everything I heard at EC'15, the most interesting comment came from Kevin Keith, Director of Business Development for enterprise mobility management (EMM) vendor AirWatch. In the general IT population the term "Mobile Device Management" or "MDM" still hangs on, but in the mobile space, we now talk about "EMM."

While a leading EMM supplier, Mr. Keith described his company's role as fostering "mobile enablement." That struck a chord with me because most users think of EMM or MDM as a means of managing and securing mobile devices. AirWatch's view is that the data security and device management features are simply a necessity for any enterprise mobility initiative. What they are doing is "enabling" mobility - more specifically, enabling it in a responsible and business-like fashion.

Embarrassingly, most of the mobile UC solutions are fundamentally incompatible with the secure container technologies that are becoming the mainstay of EMM solutions. That means when they do finally come out with mobile applications that users really need, the UC vendors may find that their solutions are incompatible with the EMM platforms that are the foundation of their customers' mobility initiatives.

In a closing note, my dear friend Fred Knight announced that he is stepping down as General Manager and Co-Chairman of Enterprise Connect and turning over the reigns to his Co-Chairman, Eric Krapf. I have known Fred since he joined Business Communications Review as Editor back in 1984; I had been contributing to BCR for about six years at that point. Through his many years at BCR then NoJitter and the various manifestations of PBX/VoiceCon/Enterprise Connect, Fred has been a spirited, dedicated and insightful leader - and a good friend. His presence, his vision, and, of course, his self-deprecating humor will be sorely missed.

Good luck, Eric - we're all behind you.