Now that we all have an assortment of iPhones, Droids, tablet devices, and Windows devices, lots of industry folks believe that mobile security is the next hot market. There are a number of players already in this market from pure plays like Good Security and Mobile Active Defense. Traditional endpoint security vendors like McAfee see this as an extension of its antivirus business. Symantec is in the same boat with antivirus as well as encryption software from PGP. Networking vendors also see up-side in the mobile device security market. Cisco has AnyConnect and ScanSafe while Juniper Networks wants to combine its Pulse client with its recent acquisition of SMobile.
These vendors come at mobile security from many different angles with different security functionality in different places–some on the device and some on the network. Will this confuse the market? No. Enterprises are actually looking for a wide range of mobile device security functionality. According to an ESG Research survey of 174 security professionals working at enterprise (i.e., more than 1,000 employees) organizations, the top three most important mobile device features are 1) device encryption, 2) device firewall, and 3) strong authentication. They also want things like DLP, VPN, and device locking.
Beyond security functionality, most enterprises also want an integrated platform for mobile device security and management. In other words, they want a single software package for device provisioning, configuration, reporting, etc. They also want a common set of features for all mobile devices rather than a potpourri of different features for iPhone, Windows 7, Droid, Palm, etc.
It appears then that the mobile device security market will include networking, security, and management vendors along with device manufacturers and carriers as well. Personally, I think mobile device security will have a network architecture look to it, with technology safeguards built into devices, the enterprise, and the cloud. If this happens, integration will be critical for all leading products.
Tags: Android, AnyConnect, Cisco, Droid, Good Security, iPhone, Juniper Networks, McAfee, Mobile Active Defenses, Palm, PGP, ScanSafe, SMobile, Symantec, Windows 7, Windows 7 Phone Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
For the last few years, I used Windows Vista on my laptop PC and felt like it was pretty good. I guess I was part of a small minority – most organizations eschewed Vista and stuck with tried-and-true XP.
Now that Windows 7 is out, it appears like the tides have turned. According to ESG Research, 44% of SMEs (i.e., organizations with less than 1,000 employees) and enterprises (i.e., organizations with more than 1,000 employees) will conduct significant upgrades from older versions of Windows to Windows 7 in 2010. By the end of 2011, 60% of large and small organizations will conduct significant upgrades to Windows 7. For the purposes of this research, ESG defined the term “significant upgrade” as at least 25% of total PCs. That’s a lot of PCs!
These upgrades will take place across the board: small and large companies, vertical industries, etc.
Regardless of what you thought about Windows Vista, it is clearly time to move on. ESG believes that the impending massive migration to Windows 7 means:
XP was a great version of Windows but it was first released in 2001 so many organizations are moving on. IT managers and technology vendors should prepare for this inevitability by viewing Windows 7 as an invitation to train users, bolster security, take advantage of Windows functionality, and sell complementary products and services.
Tags: Citrix, Microsoft, NAP, server core, virtualization, VMware, Windows, Windows 7 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
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