GigaOM » mobile enterprise

Mocana raises $25M to secure the enterprise app boom

Ryan Kim — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 04:01:22 +0000

Security in the age of bring-your-own-device and the Internet of things is making life more difficult for IT managers, who have to secure not just an exploding number of devices but also the applications and software that runs on them. But that, in turn, is opening up more opportunities for companies like Mocana, a security specialist that is announcing $25 million in new funding.

Mocana’s Series D round is being led by Trident Capital with participation from current investors Intel Capital, Shasta, Southern Cross and Symantec. The new money, which comes on top of $22 million previously raised, will be used to help Mocana further pursue its two main lines of business.

The company works with device makers to build security into a growing array of devices, not just PCs, tablets and smartphones but all kinds of connected machines. It has more than 200 customers across five major sectors: smart grid, mobile and consumer electronics, healthcare, datacom and federal.

But the faster growing business is Mocana’s mobile application protection (MAP) tool, which allows IT managers to secure apps and set different security settings for them without having to control the underlying mobile device. That’s an increasingly important business as more enterprises look to deploy apps on employee-controlled devices.

Adrian Turner, Mocana’s CEO, told me that the MAP business accounts for 20 percent of its revenues but will claim half of the company’s business in three years. Mocana’s MAP competes against Good Technology’s Good Dynamics, which allows independent software developers, corporate customers and systems integrators to build and secure apps using Good Technology’s SDK.

Mocana is backed by some big security players including Intel, which bought McAfee and Symantec. Turner said their continued investment reflects the progress Mocana has made in securing smart devices and applications. I’ll be interested to see if either of them looks at Mocana as a potential acquisition target down the road. With the growth of connected devices and more apps to secure on employee machines, Mocana is likely to have plenty of business in the years to come.

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Forrester: More than half of enterprises support consumer phones

Kevin C. Tofel — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 21:19:55 +0000

Enterprises that never expected to support personal consumer devices are slowly changing their minds, with 59 percent now supporting employee-owned smartphones in various ways; something unheard of when I worked in I.T. just a handful of years ago. The growing number, based on data in a Forrester research report published today, is likely to continue rising as the mobile lines between home and work keep blurring. That means more opportunity for device makers and mobile app developers to create solutions that effectively cater to both.

While Apple’s iOS has been making strong headway in enterprises, Forrester’s data shows that Google still has a strong play in the workplace even as companies are wary of both. “[I]n the next 12 months, 83% of firms expect to support iOS and 77% expect to support Android, despite underlying security concerns for these platforms,” the report says. Given how the iPad is still outselling Google Android Honeycomb tablets by many factors, it sounds like businesses are supporting more Android smartphones as opposed to tablets, while iPads and iPhones are both making their way into the workplace.

But one can’t talk about enterprises without mentioning Windows, and in this case, it comes in two flavors: Windows on the desktop and Windows Phone on handsets. Although Forrester doesn’t come out and say it specifically in its report, the possibility of supporting Windows Phone in the workplace is certainly suggested. And that makes sense because there’s definitely room for a third major mobile platform and ecosystem.

After using the new Mango software update on a Windows Phone — and because competitors such as webOS and BlackBerry aren’t showing as much forward momentum — I think Windows Phone will be that third platform. Given the Microsoft Office, Sharepoint and Exchange hooks, it seems a natural fit for the enterprise.

In terms of Windows itself, there’s a mobile aspect worth considering which highlights a broader opportunity: mobile virtualization. As employees shift from desktops and laptops to smartphones and tablets for work, there’s still a need for desktop-grade software access. That can be handled on mobiles through remote desktop solutions such as LogMeIn Ignition or Citrix Receiver, allowing for secure desktop access from a tablet or smartphone, for example.

Remote desktop access is just one piece of the enterprise puzzle when it comes to consumer devices, however. Personal smartphones and tablets could be used to carry enterprise data, so secure methods are needed. And employees don’t want to see their work software in the way of games, social networking apps and other personal software. Virtualizing a work environment on the phone or tablet can keep the two worlds apart on the same device.

The MyModes software I used on a T-Mobile smartphone attempts to do this at the user interface level with different themes for work and play on the same smartphone, for example, but a truly virtual work environment on consumer devices brings needed security. A solution like the one from VMWare that I pointed out in December could temporarily turn an employee owned phone into an enterprise tool as needed with little to no risk of compromised data.

Regardless of the platform, device or mobile apps involved, it’s clear that enterprises can either embrace consumer devices or suffer unhappy employees that are forced to carry multiple mobiles for both work and personal use.

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iPad’s enterprise growth bested only by iPhone

Darrell Etherington — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 14:27:15 +0000

The iPad is leading the tablet charge in small and medium-sized businesses (SMB), resulting in a growth spurt that puts the Apple device out in front of nearly all other comers when it comes to new ActiveSync activations performed by enterprise cloud services provider Intermedia. I say nearly because there’s still one device that sees even more activations: the iPhone.

Source: Intermedia. Click the image for more.

Intermedia handles around 350,000 premium hosted Microsoft Exchange servers, making it the largest such email provider operating worldwide. It surveys the device makeup of its customers’ ActiveSync-capable smartphones and tablets (basically any device that isn’t a BlackBerry) in the process of running said servers, gathering the data in cloud mobility reports.

This time around, for the period between the end of May and August, iPad activation rose a considerable 102 percent compared to the period immediately preceding it, making it the number two most-activated device (including smartphones) that Intermedia supports. The breakdown of total activations for the period saw the iPhone at number one with 51 percent overall, followed by the iPad with 21 percent. Rounding out the top five were Motorola devices with 9 percent, HTC handsets with 8 percent, and finally LG, Nokia, Palm and Samsung devices with a combined total of less than 4 percent.

Apple’s success with SMB customers can likely be accounted for somewhat by the greater willingness of smaller enterprise customers to embrace “bring your own device” models of IT hardware support, but it’s a trend that seems to apply equally among enterprises of all sizes.

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Move over Android, China has a new cloud-based phone!

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:21:16 +0000

Android and iOS phones may be gaining traction around the world, but after three years of development, Alibaba thinks there’s room in China for another smartphone platform. The company is launching its mobile platform, Aliyun, on the K-Touch W700 handset later this month.

The Aliyun platform focuses on cloud-based, web applications but is also “fully compatible” with Google Android apps, according to a statement the company provided to the Wall Street Journal. Alibaba will complement each handset with 100 GB of data storage on its AliCloud service.

In any other region of the world, I’d say such a device has no chance. But China’s mobile broadband infrastructure is still developing across the vast region and relatively few are using 3G-capable smartphones. Essentially, the country is ripe for smartphone growth and it shows.

In the first four months of this year, the number of 3G subscribers jumped 44 percent to 67.57 million. That means in a population of more than 1.4 billion people, only a small percentage of the 900 million mobile subscribers are using smartphones. Contrast that with the U.S., where more than half of all handsets now sold are smartphones.

As far as the Aliyun platform and its reliance on the cloud, details are vague. Here’s how the company describes it at a high level:

The cloud OS will feature cloud services including e-mail, Internet search, weather updates and mapping & GPS navigation tools. A distinguishing feature of the cloud OS is its support for web-based apps. These offer users an Internet-like experience and do not require the user to download or install application software on their mobile devices. Cloud OS users can seamlessly synchronize, store and back-up data such as contact information, call logs, text messages, notes and photos to AliCloud’s remote data center, and can also access and update this data across all their PC and mobile devices.

I’m not sure that “support for web-based apps” is a distinguishing feature, as all current platforms have the same support. Screen shots show the user interface to be similar to iOS, but with a hint of webOS, so there’s nothing innovative in that respect, either.

Then again, when less than 10 percent of all cellular subscribers are using a 3G handset, maybe innovation isn’t required. But I wonder how dependent upon the cloud Alibaba’s platform actually is.If the 3G infrastructure is still a work-in-progress for many areas across the large Chinese land mass, it could pose a problem for the handset.

We’ll be talking more about the intersection of the cloud and mobile technology at Mobilize, September 26-27.

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Lots of promise, lots of competition for enterprise tablets

Colin Gibbs — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 19:00:00 +0000

The tablet market has suddenly become a very crowded space: Huawei unveiled its 7-inch MediaPad yesterday, Hewlett-Packard has begun taking orders for its TouchPad, Research In Motion has shipped 500,000 PlayBooks and Panasonic is preparing to come to market with an Android-based Toughbook, to name just a few. All of these devices take aim at Apple’s iPad, which has enjoyed runaway success among consumers and has been embraced by bigwigs in the enterprise, as my colleague Darrell Etherington pointed out last week.

And while end users are primarily driving the market for enterprise tablets today, businesses will increasingly take tablet deployments into their own hands, as a recent survey from Dimensional Research illustrates. The firm found that 22 percent of business and IT executives polled said that they had officially deployed tablets, and 78 percent plan to do so by the end of 2013.

But as I discuss in a new report on enterprise tablets at GigaOM Pro (subscription required), the competition will be fierce, because so many new tablets are coming to market. Apple has created something of a standard with its $500 price point for the least expensive iPad, so competitors who can’t match that price will have to differentiate themselves with other features or functionality. Both consumer and enterprise applications will also play a major role in determining the success or failure of tablets in the enterprise. And security will increasingly be a factor, especially for businesses that allow employees to use their own tablets for work.

Enterprise tablets represent a very promising space, especially in vertical markets such as education, retail and health care. But the market for business tablets is still in its infancy, and it will endure substantial growing pains over the next two to three years. Tablet manufacturers and application developers who understand the needs of businesses and their employees will thrive as the space gets legs. Those who fail to meet those needs will quickly find themselves left behind. For more thoughts on the promising market for enterprise tablets as well as a competitive analysis of major players in the space, please see my new report (subscription required).

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Why Apple — Not RIM — Is Poised to Own the Mobile Enterprise

Colin Gibbs — Wed, 04 May 2011 20:00:27 +0000

Shares of Research In Motion plunged late last week after the company slashed its earnings and sales forecasts for the current quarter, but the company was positioned for a rebound this week with a flurry of announcements from its BlackBerry World event. It introduced the Bold 9900 and 9930 handsets, announced a deal to integrate Microsoft’s Bing on BlackBerry handsets and trumpeted the acquisition of software-maker Ubitexx. But there are a few reasons why Apple, not RIM, may be better positioned in today’s mobile enterprise.

BlackBerry OS is old and there are still no QNX handsets. The days of BlackBerry being the device of choice among the business class have ended. End users are increasingly determining which devices they use for work, and they’re opting for consumer-targeted devices that run newer, slicker operating systems. RIM recently said it expects a shortfall in BlackBerry sales, leading to a 10 percent plunge in its stock. QNX looks promising, but the new handsets are powered by BlackBerry 7, and as my colleague Kevin C. Tofel noted, they aren’t enough to lure users away from the iPhone.
Apple’s iOS is ready for business. While the platform once had some crucial shortcomings, Forrester said last year that “most enterprises can use Apple mobile enterprises securely.” IOS clearly doesn’t offer the kind of iron-clad security that, say, would be necessary for Barack Obama, but it now supports email encryption, one-second remote device wipe and other management policies IT departments demand, such as wireless app distribution and improved email support. And businesses are responding: Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said last month that 88 percent of Fortune 500 companies are testing or deploying iPhones, and 75 percent are testing or deploying iPads.
Apple still owns the tablet market. The iPad accounted for a whopping 85 percent of worldwide tablet sales in 2010, according to recent data from ABI Research, and the gadget is already finding a home in the enterprise. And viable competition for the iPad in the enterprise has yet to emerge: RIM’s PlayBook has met with mixed reviews at best, and it is targeted at the ever-diminishing audience of BlackBerry users. RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky recently predicted RIM would sell 500,000 PlayBooks by the end of May, a respectable figure, to be sure, but nothing to the one million iPad 2 tablets that sold during that gadget’s opening weekend.

RIM won’t disappear from the mobile landscape — the Ubitexx acquisition underscores the role RIM could play as a device-management company — but it is rapidly losing its standing as the preeminent provider of a mobile operating system for the enterprise. Meanwhile, the likes of Android and Microsoft and Nokia remain more likely to flourish inthe consumer space. For more that, and to read more about Apple’s chances in the enterprise, please see my weekly column at GigaOM Pro (subscription required).

Image courtesy Flickr user Cristiano Betta.

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Android’s Fragmentation Won’t Fly in the Mobile Enterprise

Colin Gibbs — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:00:22 +0000

Google is hoping to become a major player in the mobile enterprise with Honeycomb, an updated version of Android built specifically for tablets. But it will have to fix its fragmentation problem if it wants to compete in an increasingly crowded market.

The Internet giant recently warned that it will withhold early access to Android upgrades for partners who fail to get Mountain View’s approval for tweaks to the software. That move followed March’s introduction of new tools designed to help developers address older versions of its operating system and bring some of Honeycomb’s features to smartphones.

Android’s fragmentation has yet to affect most consumers (as evidenced by Android’s expanding share of the U.S. smartphone OS market), but developers have definitely taken notice: addressing the entire base of Android handsets with a single build is a tall task for some. A whopping 86 percent of Android developers said fragmentation is at least something of a problem, according to new research from Robert W. Baird & Co.; 55 percent believe it’s a “meaningful” or “huge” problem.

Fragmentation can be merely annoying when you’re using a smartphone’s virtual slingshot to kill pigs with fowl in Angry Birds, but Google has its eye on the enterprise tablet market, and those problems are simply unacceptable when it comes to business applications. Even more importantly, those snafus are far more troubling on the tablets the newest version of Android was developed for, because they provide a more immersive experience. A graphical error becomes much more obvious on the larger screen of a tablet, for instance, and user interface glitches are more irritating.

Android’s growing worldwide distribution ensures that developers of games and other genres of entertainment apps will continue to churn out titles for the platform regardless of its fragmentation problems. But the options for mobile enterprise developers are quickly expanding beyond the iPad to include RIM’s upcoming PlayBook and Hewlett Packard’s TouchPad, which will launch this summer. So to lure developers of business-targeted offerings on tablets, Google will need to demonstrate that applications can run effectively and consistently across all of those Android tablets that are coming to market. For more thoughts about why Google must solve Android’s fragmentation to conquer the mobile enterprise, please see my weekly column at GigaOM Pro (sub. required).

Image source: Flickr user zipckr.

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Enterproid Brings Work/Life Balance to Smartphones

Ryan Kim — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:00:29 +0000

Updated. With a rising number of employees bringing their own smartphones into their companies, the race is on to see who can help enterprise customers secure and manage this emerging fleet of devices. The latest entrant to the space is Enterproid, a New York start-up that has built an app environment for smartphones that separates corporate data from personal information.

The company, which is presenting at the DEMO conference today, is looking to strike the right balance between IT demands and end-user needs. The result is a secure encrypted environment called Divide that mimics virtualization but isn’t tied to the hardware. Instead, it’s a partitioned area within the interface that comes with its own applications for web browsing, email, SMS, calendar and contacts. The first version, which will launch on Android, can be accessed by a tap of the app icon or through a double tap of the home screen button. Divide then launches into a distinctive profile that is secure from the rest of the phone.

Andrew Toy, CEO and co-founder, said the system doesn’t require dedicated servers and leverages Microsoft ActiveSync. It works with Enterproid’s cloud-based management system, allowing companies to provision devices within minutes. He said IT managers and individual users can manage, secure, find and remotely wipe devices from a cloud-based console. Companies can also build their own internal apps for Divide using an API.

“We think of this as a holistic solution that’s very easy and cloud-based,” said Toy. “We’re also looking at having two clients. We want to make IT happy but we want to see what’s acceptable for users.”

Divide is currently in free private beta on Android devices running 2.2 or higher and will open up later this year to customers. IPhone and Windows Phone 7 versions are expected by the end of this year. Pricing hasn’t been disclosed, but it will run on a tiered subscription basis in the future.

Enterproid steps into a market that’s increasingly getting hotter, and more crowded, as companies deal with an influx of employee-bought smartphones and tablets. IDC projects that by 2014, there will be more than a billion smartphones in users’ hands, with 75 percent of employees in large companies using them for business. Good Technology, which has been one of the leaders in securing smart devices, said last year that monthly growth of enterprise iOS and Android deployments was meteoric. VMware finally unveiled its plans for mobile devices by partnering with LG to bring virtualization to Android devices. Motorola, which actually sold off Good Technology, showed its intentions to get back in the space by buying up 3LM earlier this month. And Sprint just announced a Total Equipment Protection app Monday morning to allow consumers secure, locate and remotely wipe their BlackBerry and Android devices.

There’s a big opportunity now with the consumerization of IT. Users want to bring in their own devices, but they don’t want to submit to heavy-handed device lock-downs by management, and many aren’t keen on carrying around two gadgets. I think Enterproid has a good take on how to handle this. It doesn’t require much hardware investment for companies, so it’s especially good for smaller IT shops. It achieves a kind of app-level virtualization without having to be baked into the hardware. That allows it to run on a lot of devices. And because it’s a secure environment that looks like a version of the Android interface, it feels more natural jumping back and forth. This is going to be a big battleground as companies and platform makers look to lock up corporate clients.

Enterproid’s team, for its part, has some deep mobile roots. Toy was previously VP of mobile and syndication technology at MTV Networks and used to run mobile application development for Morgan Stanley. He’s joined by co-founder Alexander Trewby, former VP of mobile development at Morgan Stanley and David Zhu, the former director of engineering and first employee at audio app maker Smule. The team has received about $2 million to date from Genacast Ventures, NYC Seed and a mix of angel investors.

Update: Qualcomm announced that Enterproid won its Ventures QPrize international venture investment competition, beating out five other competitors from around the world. In addition to bragging rights, the win gives Enterproid $150,000 in convertible note funding from Qualcomm.

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Mobile Enterprise Security in the App Era

Colin Gibbs — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 22:00:19 +0000

Usage of mobile applications continues to skyrocket, and end users are increasingly dictating which handsets they use for work. So the use of consumer apps on enterprise devices is a growing concern for IT departments who are already struggling to cope with mobile security problems.

Mobile 2011: Data Consumption Will Explode

Colin Gibbs — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 16:00:03 +0000

The always-unpredictable mobile space enters 2011 at a particularly dynamic time. Carriers are now bringing 4G networks online, even as their definitions of “4G” vary. Meanwhile, mobile data consumption is exploding and the FCC trying to settle on policies both to regulate the industry and to free up more spectrum. So while forecasting the path of mobile tends to be fraught with peril, here are some trends we expect to see in 2011.