Bring your own device – as long as it's Microsoft Nokia Lumia 630 Windows Phone We attended a Microsoft conference in London earlier this month, along with 200 senior execs, to find out more about Windows Phone 8.1, the company’s big play to get customers to buy into its enterprise mobility story. At the same time we were treated to the UK debut of the Nokia Lumia 630, the …
I have a Windows phone. Everything else in my office is Windows too. I'm pretty happy with all that.
However, I don't understand how they can claim that " value the ability for users to have the same desktop and phone interface," I've not seen any large organisations running Windows 8, so they're not going to have consistent interfaces.
Looks like someone's done a copy and paste with a MS press release - lazy journalism.
"However, I don't understand how they can claim that " value the ability for users to have the same desktop and phone interface," I've not seen any large organisations running Windows 8, so they're not going to have consistent interfaces."
Avanade and Fox News are 2 I know of that have already deployed it across their organisations and a number of large corporates I am involved with are looking at doing the same. It might not be the case where you are, but many companies will be in a postion to leverage the same interface...and that number will of course grow over time.
Thanks for the reply - my post was originally rejected, though not sure why as you don't received a reason.
My only experience is in the UK, maybe it's different on your side of the pond.
For the record, I actually like Windows 8, but it still hasn't passed the 'Dad test', so my parents are staying on Windows 7 or Vista for the time being.
It is quite possible that Windows 8 will have the same business presence as Vista. Most people skipped it. Some are just skipping it now as they migrate from XP to Windows 7.
"But what if the next Windows is the same as 8?" you may ask.
People might skip that too. How old is XP? If they can do that once, they can do it again. A lot of the move to Win7 is related to it being 64 bit, even if managers haven't realised. It could be a while before 128bit processors catch on...
One or two weeks ago we had the "Windows could be the mobile solution you're looking for" (provided that you ignore the disadvantages) Now here we are, on stage with IDC (replace with Gartner and it is the same) hearing "see, there is people out there choosing Windows Phone and it could not be that bad"
One of the most laughed points of that previous article was that somehow "Microsoft knows the enterprise better", that we see repeated here, without any backing facts that this is nothing more than wishful thinking. Let's repeat something enough times, it may become true, and let's ignore how the declining BlackBerry platform, which has virtually disappeared from the consumer space, still holds 28% of the market. For reasons that surely have nothing to do with "understanding the enterprise". Not that I'm a fan of BB, or any other smartphone platform for that matter, but this omission clearly points out to the total lack of any sense of analysis independence, simply choosing to ignore it.
Then we go into the territory of obvious discoveries: employers refuse to pay on their own money for devices when these devices have to be sandboxed for work purposes. Hint: BYOD only works if the "Y" part is actually true in the sense of having the same capabilities as something one owns, otherwise it is simply a way to shift the device costs from employer to employee. Does anyone needs an IDC analyst to know that?
And then we touch the mandatory "Office" topic. Oh please, tell me once again how Office is the cornerstone of business. And watch out for the IDC "discovery" in a few months, where they speak with a couple of dozen of corporate mobile users and shockingly discover that mobile users are happy enough to view an Office document on their mobiles and are not even remotely interested in creating any MS Office content on a mobile device. They have laptops for that, you know.
Not that I expect something different from the IDCs and Gartners of the world, after all they long ago abandoned any pretense of neutrality. But come on, Reg, you're supposedly on a level somehow closer to actual journalism than this.
"let's ignore how the declining BlackBerry platform, which has virtually disappeared from the consumer space, still holds 28% of the market."
Erm - no - no it doesn't - Blackberry market share was 0.5% in the latest quarter:
http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp
Just like XP machines that were still in use after 5 or 6 years, instead of the 3 or 4 that they were capitalized over, Blackberries tend to hold up fairly well for a lot of users. So I can well believe that companies that have had a BES in place for 5-10 years are still using and supporting Blackberries, but they may not be buying very many new ones - I know that we're not!
My daughter has worked for two separate home care enterprises, here in Germany. One was the Caritas the other a private company. Both have implemented WP with custom care planning apps, although they are still transitioning from WP7 to WP8 as the contracts are renewed.
Even if it does come from Microsoft. I use various custom and rooted Android ROMs at home but I wouldn't let me near corporate data with them, even letting me on the WiFi would be a risk. Windows phone does lots of phone like things well and can be locked down well using skills that are already in the marketplace. Bring Your Own Dropbox is a short term cost saving with endless hours of security consulting cost waiting in the future.
Agreed. Plus in Europe it is very difficult to implement BYOD, as many data protection rules pretty much preclude the practice, or at best have such tight restrictions as to be inpracitcable.
For example, here, if you BYOD your own tablet, nobody else in the family can ever use it again. You need to passwort protect it and no non-employee can ever use the device again, supervised or unsupervised.
iPhones have a reputation for being attractive and easy. (Ha).
People remember that XDA or winphone that was forced upon them all those years ago; the one without enough RAM to function as intended, and with the rubbish vnp connection that kept dropping out, and the sync that never quite worked. Then they remember bad experiences with windows; perhaps PowerPoint or word doc corruption, a bsod or crash and losing work.
iPhones don't have the same baggage.
To a certain extent android has suffered in a similar way; poor hardware and bad integration have switched people off in the past.
If MS want to get business to engage then the 630 is NOT the answer. It's too underpowered. I don't care what the shills say - if you want a device to exceed expectation then give it way more oomph than it could ever need. It needs to be at least as quick/well specced as the latest iPhone.
Of COURSE a "budget phone" will outperform everything else on the market with 5x the power under the hood... it comes with these magic beans... all you do is bend over and use the special "application rod" to get them nice and deep. If it does end up slow then it's your fault; you must be holding it wrong.
It's a budget device and unless someone tests it out in the "real world" in a corporate environment with heavy email use, the need to open and close spreadsheets and word documents and PowerPoint's and make and receive 20 calls a day and perhaps interact with a CRM system, some in house intranet / Java applets etc and, hmmm, maybe try some JavaScript heavy websites of clients... And that person tells me it's good enough, then OK I'll change my mind. But iphones and top end smartphones sometimes struggle to cope in that situation so a budget model will make people want to scream and rip their fingernails out.
There is an obvious split in our company. Sales and marketing mostly pick iPhone, engineering and more technical (smarter) people pick Android.
In our CYOD rollout it was 70% android (Nexus 5 or galaxy s4), but then we are a technology company. Many of that initial 30% iphone userbase have already asked to swap next time, as they have seen what the n5/s4 owners have that they don't.
We are talking of just going 100% Android next time around, as it's easier to manage in a corporate environment (Google made some big strides in device administration in the last couple of years and mobile-iron works very well) the few holdouts on iPhone are easily converted when you show them some cool stuff they are missing out on.
Interestingly we have 2x windows phones for corporate managers responsible for Nokia. They have been nothing but trouble.. Replaced many times for various faults, and only used when visiting Nokia facilities. (as if it makes a diference)
I have no problems with the OS or the hardware. However a lot of businesses only support up to 2 phone OS.
If I can't get things like tripcase or webex then the phone is just a glorified browser.
It's not Nokia and MS fault however it is a consequence of being a long way back in the number of user stakes.
Webex is there and no Tripcase. but I buzz around the world with the BA, American airlines an Marriott applications on my corp. 635. I don't like the integrated apps, if I am booking a BA flight, I want to do it with BA. You mileage may vary
Our corp choice is Windows through out and whilst a number of my fellow brilliantined zoot suited manager sluts cried when the iPhones were taken off them, it's ceased to be topic of conversation.
I see no reason contra WP, just as I see no pushing reason pro WP
I avoided it for a long time for the reasons listed in the article. My company reserves the right to wipe my phone, getting rid of all my pictures, games, apps, local data? No thanks.
I had to for travel though. Eventually I'll pressure them to buy me a second phone plan if they want to delete data off my phone.
@Bullseyed - couldn't agree more. Same with my laptop - one of the questions on the employee information sheet was "Do you have the equipment at home suitable to allow you to work from home, should the need arise?" - No I do not! My laptop is my laptop!
So true....... I wish I'd said that first! If a company wants me to do a little word processing or spread sheet work then OK. But NOBODY messes with ANY settings on my IT kit....period! Where I work now, we have 2 wireless networks - a corporate and a guest. Woe betide anyone who connects a non corporate laptop, phone or tablet to the corporate network!
Try sending a .pdf in the email client...
Office docs, images/media . OK, but any other type of attachment? Good luck with that.
How in h*ll can you claim your phone "ecosystem" is corporate ready when it can't even support simple actions like adding an attachment.
Use case: You're applying for work and have saved a pdf of both your CV and standard cover letter onto the phone. Now you need to send an email with the 2 pdfs as attachments.
FAIL.
You often see people saying that MS need a chance to establish themselves being so new to the phone market. Bollocks.
MS have been in the game since 2001 or so, longer than Google and iphone.
They had the opportunity to almost have a corporate phone monopoly hooked in with corporate servers and desktops but then they just idled for ten years.
Microsoft went wrong when they stopped understanding the cusomer. Corporates want boring but functional platforms. Beige.
The rot started with ribbons. Adaptive UIs make it almost impossible to find your way around a program. They make over-the-phone help desking almost impossible.
Then MS bought Danger and became enamoured with the Kin phone and tiles. This is designed as a cool interface for kids. Not something that just gives utility as a tool. While Kin itself died quickly, the tiles interface was picked up and shoved into Win 8.
They even added things called "charms". Such things might make sense in a Pink Pony OS for 9 year old girls, but it is a stretch to think that IT and corporate people want to play with their charm bars.
It is only through a huge corporate smackdown that MS might rethink their strategy. MS need the corporate desktop to survive.
One for "personal" use, and another for "corporate" use. Of course the "corporate" one will be Microsoft.
So why have a "personal" phone? So the "corporate" people won't screw it all up, and I can have my Angry Birds app on it.
Of course, you might need a lot of phone screen space to handle that nice "ribbon" interface you use to work on Word documents. Such fun!
Microsoft wants you to have everything (phone, tablet, laptop, desktop) all the same, and doesn't understand the environments are QUITE different. Phone and tablet are "one handed" interface devices, and laptop and desktop are "two handed" interface devices. Sorry Microsoft it isn't all the same!!
I would think ignoring 23% of corporate smartphones puts a serious dent in their credibility. This is over twice their figure for windows phones. I doubt many will be Symbian, the the bulk must be BlackBerry.
This means they are ignoring a section larger than their subject. Where I work there is one Windows phone, a couple of BB10 phones, but the bulk are iPhones, Androids and classic BlackBerrys.
The obvious aim of this cherry picked analysis is to try and annex BlackBerry's remaining share, by marginalizing them.
However BlackBerry seem to be doing a pretty good job of that on their own. Despite producing a really good new system, that runs android apps, (and isn't American owned, so no patriot act worries), they have managed to mess it up by stupidity.
1. It doesn't fit into existing infrastructure, making it a non starter for many corporates.
2. It doesn't do certain things as well as the old classic BB. (Text input - autocorrect is very poor compared to BB6 and there are no phonetic layouts for other alphabets. Power - auto power on/off function missing).
I think the only simple thing they could do to save themselves in the corporate market is if they made their phones dual boot, between the old OS and the new. (People could even use BB7 for work and 10 for their time.)
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
