The smartphone conundrum: A single device for work and play?

There’s a mobile revolution going on, but one could forgive corporate IT departments for not jumping up and down with excitement. 

That’s because smartphones and tablets that are finding their way into the workplace represent insomnia-inducing challenges for IT, not to mention liabilities for companies with large mobile workforces.

Some solution providers say mobile virtualisation just might be the answer harried IT departments are looking for.

Demand for that one, cool smartphone that unites work and personal functions has been building ever since the Apple iPhone ignited the phenomenon known as the “consumerisation of IT.

”Apple’s iPad and Google Android-based tablets are quickly gaining fans among business users.Yet in both cases, data security and device management have proven to be enough of a barrier that IT departments often forbid their use, erring on the side of caution.

This mobile phobia is a missed opportunity for companies because employees’ personal mobile devices are typically more advanced than the ones on which their companies have standardised.

“Smartphones and tablets are becoming an increasingly important part of user computing, and it’s a challenge for administrators to handle these devices in the workplace,” said Steve Kaplan, vice president of data center virtualisation practices at INX, a Houston-based solution provider.

In light of the productivity benefits mobile devices bring, virtualisation technology is receiving an increasing amount of attention.

Chris Pyle, president and CEO of Champion Solutions Group, a US-based solution provider, has seen a “major uptick” in virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) business, driven in large part by that consumerisation of IT.

“People are bringing the devices they want to use to do business, and IT is trying to respond to that,” Pyle said.

Wyse Technology’s PocketCloud and Citrix Systems’ Receiver are examples of applications that can allow smartphones and tablets to mimic the functionality and more importantly, the security and management of corporate PCs.These apps can run most commonly used business applications and strike the much-sought-after balance between user convenience and IT requirements.

The mobile virtualisation partnerships between VMware and LG could be a sign of where things are headed.

LG is slated this year to begin shipping Android smartphones preloaded with VMware’s Mobile Virtualisation Platform (MVP), a thin layer of software that is embedded on a mobile phone that puts the phone’s operating system, applications and data into a virtual machine that’s separate from the underlying hardware.

Scott Scherer, an analyst with research firm In-Stat, Scottsdale, Arizona, said there’s an especially strong case for mobile virtualisation in large organisations and ones with tight internal control requirements. And as with other types of virtualisation, there is also potential for significant cost savings.

“There is opportunity to improve productivity by granting mobile access to company tools and services, to reduce costs by shifting the purchase of handsets and service agreements to employees, and to improve IT department efficiency through easy-to-use administrative tools,” Scherer said.

Chris Ward, senior solutions architect at GreenPages Technology Solutions, a solution provider in Kittery, Maine, said LG and VMware’s model has potential but he doesn’t believe most current smartphones have the horsepower to handle multiple operating system instances.

“The phone hardware manufacturers are going to have to stop skimping on horsepower,” saidWard. “Most handset vendors under- power the phones or give them just barely enough to run the OS that comes with the phone.”

Other vendors would argue that the single device for work and play could be realised without the use of mobile virtualisation.

This has been one of Microsoft’s key mantras for Windows Phone 7, a beefy OS that comes loaded with Office apps, Office 365 suite inte- gration and all the consumer bells and whistles a mobile aficionado could ever want.

Microsoft said its OEM partners sold 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 devices in the first six weeks after its launch.

Given the number of IT departments that are struggling with the single-device conundrum, there’s a lot of pent-up demand in the marketplace for technologies that solve the problem.

Alan Gould, president and CEO of Westlake Software, a wireless solu- tion provider in Calabasas, Calif., believes there ultimately will be several different paths to this goal.

“The concept of getting down to a single device for everything is going to take many shapes, including point-and-shoot cameras los- ing out to smartphones. Users that are required to carry a personal phone and then one for business also will tell you this is highly desired,” Gould said.