What’s the definition of mobility?
If you ask me, that question used to be a lot easier to answer. We had our standalone PCs, and then we had cell phones, and eventually, smartphones—but that was it. There was a static element in the PC, and a mobile element with the smartphone, but there wasn’t a whole lot of connection between the two.
Now, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The cloud means that we’re always connected—and not just our phones and PCs. Google’s buying up companies to help it make a grab for the Internet of Things. You can use your smartphone to control your home alarm and your thermostat, and you can get text messages from your washing machine when your laundry is done. The thought of any new device not being connected to the cloud is today just as crazy as the old idea that different devices were all individual, disconnected entities.
As new devices enter this mobile ecosystem where everything is connected, even if we’re not sure what they’re used for, we make them a part of our network and find uses for them later. We care about mobility, and being connected, and we love the new technology that’s continuing to be introduced at an amazing pace.
Mobile is no longer its own class of computing devices and software—mobile defines the world we live in. And if you care about mobility itself as much as you care about any single new component in this Internet of Things, why aren’t you managing it as well as you’re managing your web servers and your infrastructure?
Mobility is going to continue to be a part of your business ecosystem whether you like it or not, so it’s time to get on board and manage mobility just like you do everything else in your infrastructure. It’s no longer acceptable to manage individual aspects of a mobile world—businesses need to be able to manage this new mobile lifestyle in its entirety.
The line between different devices and the broader mobile ecosystem may be getting harder to see, but that’s no excuse for poor management. Now’s the time to get on board and take control of the future before you get too far behind.
