Earlier this year, the CEO of IBM’s Brazilian unit said that more time is needed to understand the impact of mobile devices on corporate business, but that hasn’t stopped IBM from acting. The company recently announced new software and service additions to its mobile enterprise suite.
This launch is part of IBM’s strategy to capitalize on the growing market opportunity for mobile, the company said, citing a survey from McKinsey & Company forecasting that mobile will create U.S.$130 billion in revenue for the IT industry by 2015.
Indeed, IBM is looking at one of the most talked about trends this year: “bring-your-own-device” or BYOD which refers to employees bringing their own equipment into the corporate environment. In addition, because BYOD requires IT teams to set policies letting employees know what they can and cannot do, this trend is also boosting the market for mobile device management (MDM) tools. IBM’s new suite aims to build a comprehensive mobile computing strategy—from securing and managing devices to creating mobile applications and analyzing data.
Phil Buckellew, vice president for IBM Mobile Enterprise, said that mobile is fundamentally changing the way people think, work and act, and the speed at which this shift is occurring is forcing organizations to react, instead of proactively plan.
IBM is looking at a future that is increasingly mobile, as more organizations start to view mobile computing as the next platform for conducting business. The company said the market is evolving beyond the device alone. “Business leaders including the chief information officers (CIOs) and increasingly chief marketing officers (CMOs) of global organizations such as airlines, retailers, governments and healthcare providers are among the businesses turning to IBM to ensure mobile services and solutions are readily available to constituents and in full compliance with IT strategies,” the company said in a statement.
IBM’s path to mobile has been clear. The company acquired new assets in the past, aiming to boost its mobile, social and cloud work. Last August, IBM paid about U.S.$1.3 billion to acquire Kenexa Corporation, claiming that the acquisition bolstered its leadership in helping clients expand their social business capabilities and gain actionable insights from the enormous amount of information generated from social networks.
In May, IBM unveiled Mobile Foundation, a portfolio of products and services designed to help organizations capitalize on the proliferation of mobile environments. It aimed to provide solutions for laptops, smartphones and tablets, and followed IBM’s acquisition of Worklight.
With Worklight, IBM plans to offer its customers a complete set of software and services to help them bring mobile devices into their business infrastructure. Now, a few months later, IBM announced that it has a new client, Rohde & Schwarz, a global manufacturing company specializing in high-end test and measurement equipment.
According to IBM, Rohde & Schwarz armed the 2,000 members of its global sales team with mobile devices and applications, so they would have access the critical information needed to retrieve client information in real-time, easily access inventory information and rapidly close sales.
