Mobile IT: Taming the unruly toddler

Futures Café, 2nd December 2009

Nick Skelton http://seis.bris.ac.uk/~ccnjs

Image courtesy of vermininc @ flickr

Why is mobile important?

Image courtesy of nicosmos @ flickr

Mobile IT is in its infancy

IBM PC photo courtesy of mwichary @ flickr, Apple photo courtsey of spaceageboy @ flickr

What’s changed?

Why do people care about their phones so much?

Images from flickr: 2CV courtesy of St3f4n, Rolls Royce gentleman_rook, smartcar yourdon, & Range Rover kenjonbro

How do we support mobile IT users at Bristol?

Photo courtesy of liquene @ flickr

Gartner Managed Diversity Strategy

or alternatively restaurants…

Menu du jour

Photo courtesy of nicolasbal @ flickr

Your choices from the menu

Netbook or

Laptop~~~~~

Basic phone with calls & SMSOr

Messaging phone with email & calendarOr

Internet phone with web browser & app store~~~~~

3G dongleSecure encrypted USB stick

Menu du jour (Gartner platform model)

• Limited choice of devices, in exchange user gets support

• Tested to work with university services • User breaks it and the university fixes it• Device can be managed (encryption,

remote wipe)   • Applications can be specially written for

the platform

Platform model suitable for

People who

• need guidance and don’t want to choose

• want things to "just work" with someone else worrying about the details

• use a paper diary or calendar to plan their personal life

• aren’t necessarily tech-savvy

Pick and Mix

Photo courtesy of sean_hickin @ flickr

Pick and mix (Gartner appliance model)

• Typically employee owned and paid for

• University provides self-support info

• If it breaks, you fix it

• If it doesn’t work, it is your problem

• Limited to safe interactions with corporate systems

Appliance model suitable for

People who:

• are tech-savvy

• already make heavy use of mobiles and may have a personal favourite

• think personal tech is more important than work tech

• don't want to carry two mobiles

Silver service concierge

Which approach do we want?

1. set menu for UOB owned devices

2. pick and mix (for student and employee owned devices only)

Bolt-ons are ugly

Image courtesy of David Wright @ geograph.org.uk

Design in mobile from ground up

• Application and platform-independent • Avoid vendor lock-in • Interoperable • Adaptable • Accessible

Good mobile services are good services in general

This is particularly important for mobile

• Market is segmented, no dominant platform

• Native applications on each smartphone platform must understand the data

Checklist for a new service

• Does it use widely deployed open standards or industry standards?

• Is the data accessible in the native applications on all major mobile platforms?

• Does it work in any web browser? (IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome)

• Does it work without plugins? Without javascript?• Does the web interface resizes nicely for different

resolutions?• Can it be built-in to the portal? (Use Single Sign On?)• Is it extensible? (Does it have well-defined APIs?)• Can the data be imported and exported easily?

Vision for mobile IT

• Staff and students can work anytime & anywhere

• Services available as webapps within the portal, accessible from any web browser

• Our data is in standard formats that can be accessed on any smartphone