Future of Vegas Buffets: $20 Billion for All You Can Eat.
Mobility is entering the buffet stage. Does the enterprise have too much of a good thing with multiple major operating systems, app management and secure content schemes running through tablets, smartphones and connected devices? SAP TechEd Las Vegas kicks off this week to help enterprises make sense of their mobility, content and scalability options. The information buffet line is officially open.
This comes not a minute too soon as Windows 8 goes on sale Oct. 26 with even more enterprise device options running the OS arriving from OEM vendors including Acer, Dell, Lenovo and others. At the same time, Microsoft will launch its own Windows 8 tablet called Surface.
How will the enterprise decide on which platforms, app management, secure content and operating systems to embrace and devices to securely manage? Good question and exactly the one VDC and SAP will answer Wednesday in this “Scaling Your Mobile Enterprise for Next Gen Operating Systems” webinar that includes new VDC customer research. TechEd attendees will hear more about this dynamic market from Mark Jordan and Nghia Nguyen discussing how the market is moving rapidly in their “Beyond Mobile Device Management with SAP Afaria: Q&A.”
Rapid OS, device and app innovation from Windows 8 is just another wrinkle in the unfolding IDC definition of mobile enterprise market led by the innovation of Apple’s iOS-based iPhone and iPad. Of course, there are more than a million new devices running Android every day. And now, “existing Windows IT users face compatibility issues with Windows 7 systems and the new Windows 8 while simultaneously trying to accommodate Android and iOS” according to eWeek.
Mobility certainly offers new entrees every day with thousands of apps for collaboration, tracking mortgages, transportation, job interviews, elections and now outer space – today’s NY Times app calls out that the Voyager is exiting the solar system. Adding further fuel to the mobility rocket, Softbank announced they were spending $20 billion on growing Sprint-Nextel’s US mobility stance – noted as the largest foreign purchase by a Japanese company. That “mobility buffet” investment alone will bring businesses and consumers second, third and fourth helpings for years to come.