Once tablets and smartphones rule the corporate environment, who will be liable for mobile device support — users or the business? More importantly, how many devices can any single user realistically own and use? Will unified communications (UC) become more urgent?

These questions and others were raised and debated at the recent Interop conference in New York. Now that the proliferation of consumer devices is a given, what will the mobile future look like at global enterprises?

I found some interesting answers and insights at an analyst roundtable led by Rohit Mehra, Director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure at IDC. He predicted that the BYOD (bring your own device) trend will persist, yet he expects corporate-supplied mobile devices to increase as well. By 2015, IDC forecasts a nearly even split between smartphones supported by the business (45.3%) and those that users will be expected to maintain on their own (54.7%).

As tablets gain legitimacy in the enterprise, the bond between mobile and UC will grow tighter, he said. “Finally, mobile UC will take off,” he said, but while the IEEE 802.11 has become a de facto industry standard for wireless LANs and Wi-Fi, newer standards may emerge making interoperability difficult.

Five Devices per Person?

Then there are the challenges posed by the sheer number of devices. IDC expects that people will use as many as five mobile devices of all types, depending on their situation, location and the workload. It’s a number that illustrates the convergence of business and personal life, said Mark Lowenstein, Managing Director, Mobile Ecosystem. Lowenstein said that the desire of mobile users for constant connectivity and low pricing, however, “doesn’t jibe yet” with current cloud models and architectures. By his estimates, 15 to 20 percent of mobile devices are currently enterprise-liable.

On the app side of the equation, Bob Egan, VP Mobile Strategy and Chief Analyst, Mobiquity, cited a new Egan/Dresner Mobile BI Study that shows “seismic shifts” in how consumers will acquire their mobile business apps in the next few years. Specifically, he suggested that enterprises will increasingly offer apps themselves, as will mobile operators, as opposed to users getting them from third parties and app stores. Longer term, the apps will be available on the cloud.

IT Keeps Some Control

What’s really happening, in Egan’s view, is what he calls the “IT-ization of the workforce.” This means that IT will continue to determine which apps employees are allowed and individual industries will provide governance, lifecycle management and even apps. IT executives may be heartened by his belief that “BYOD won’t take over enterprise,” especially in highly regulated industries where governance and risk play a big role.

Meanwhile, Andrew Borg, Senior Research Analyst, Wireless and Mobility, at Aberdeen Group, noted a widespread confluence taking place among social media, mobile apps and the cloud.

Among other key points discussed were:

• Most believe that the future of RIM’s BlackBerry is weak at best (and this was before the recent RIM outages!) Mehra thinks it will be around for a while longer, based on its installed base.

• Lowenstein noted that Apple is clearly gaining serious ground at RIM’s expense in the enterprise, and he expects some consolidation of the market to take place in the next year. Borg said that Microsoft should not be discounted in either the smartphone or the tablet market.

• Security and authentication will continue to be the biggest challenge for mobile enterprises. That is where users will want to defer to corporate IT, and IT will want to leverage existing systems. Many different pricing and service plans will be tried, including site licensing for corporate apps, and even pushing the cost of regulatory compliance and security back to employees. Overall, mobile spending is rising quickly and is displacing PC-centric devices.

I think there's still a long way to go before the corporate mobile device market shakes out. What are your biggest concerns about corporate liability of mobile devices? How are you addressing unified communication needs?

Also, read more on how corporate IT is shifting in the face of consumer-driven IT. And more from Interop here.

Paula Klein

Editor and Community Manager

Smart Enterprise Exchange