Peer to Peer Magazine

• Display: Brighter displays with greater resolution have reached full high- definition quality, reaching practical size limitations while remaining true to the handheld form factor. Further improvements in this area will be driven by the graphics processing required to play games — similar to the desktop PC. • Computing Capabilities: Dual-core processors are now the norm with quad core coming in the new year. Improvements in the design and fabrication have led to more energy-efficient devices, contributing to longer battery life. • Storage: MicroSD cards are available with 64GB of storage, and high-speed access to the cloud equates to nearly limitless storage. • Data Speeds: True 4G (long-term evolution (LTE), not the marketing 4G-branded HSPA+) provides download speeds that surpass home Internet speeds. The focus for wireless carriers is now on capacity and coverage to service the growing number of devices capable of utilizing this performance, as well as making the automatic switch between Wi-Fi and 4G seamless. • Cloud Access: With available data speeds and access to Internet-based computing (Google Maps, Amazon EC2, etc.), you are now able to do anything at any time on mobile devices. Consumers are already storing personal information in the cloud. As secure access evolves, corporate data will migrate into the cloud quickly. • Constraints: Keyboards and displays have been obstacles to a fully enabled mobile business tool. Smartphones are actually getting bigger, albeit lighter, rather than smaller to allow for keyboard functionality and increased display space. REDUCED TO A SINGLE DEVICE… In the near future, consumer devices will continue to penetrate the enterprise space. With the rapid increase in performance with each successive generation of smartphones, it won't be long before we are able to use a single converged device to replace our desktops, notebooks, tablets and smartphones. The technology is already available via VMware Horizon Mobile to create a fully partitioned environment on your smartphone. This would allow the creation of a corporate-controlled, fully secured environment, while at the same time allowing users to continue to manage their personal space as securely — or more practically insecurely — as they wish. If permitted by carriers, this would even allow the device to support both work and personal telephone numbers. Enterprises will be able to control what information, if any, is allowed to interact with the personal environment. All data will be stored in the cloud with independent encryption keys for each user, and, with ubiquitous access to the Internet, data won't need to be transferred and version-controlled among devices. Access to personal area devices will be both via a universal connector (yes, Apple, I'm giving you the stink-eye) used when charging or wireless via ultralow-power Bluetooth 4.0, but until then, via Wi-Fi. This access will include the ability to stream music to your home or car stereo, high-definition video to your home theater system and, more important, it will provide connectivity to full-size keyboards and touchscreen monitors to resolve the key issues with 48 www.iltanet.org Peer to Peer data-input and consumption limitations on smartphones. …BUT NOT ONE SINGLE DEVICE The issue that firms need to address is not which platform to support but rather how to support all the platforms. The old policies that state: "You can have any smartphone you like, as long as it's a BlackBerry" are long past us. While we miss the days of only supporting a single model of BlackBerry, the reality is that we are individuals, each with unique needs and different workflows. IT professionals need to focus on guiding users to a platform based on specific use cases. It is not about the device, it's about the applications. And this issue is resolving itself with smartphone and cloudbased applications with Citrix serving as the catch-all. THE ABILITY TO DO IT ALL Change is the only constant in the world of mobile computing. Smartphones are becoming so powerful that the key issues with using one as your primary computing device are not in the hardware, but instead in the missing applications and mature security protocols to accomplish this goal. Desktop power is the final component to converge, but, at the rate of evolution we have seen to date, this is not far off. Technologists need to stop focusing on why it's not possible to provide platform-agnostic support for mobile devices, and put the foundation in place so we are ready to support the needs of the users as the technology matures. Application integrators providing the solutions aren't talking about whether or not to include the functionality for enterprise use — they are talking about when. ILTA Dean Leung is the IT Infrastructure and Communications Director at Holland and Knight and is ILTA's Vice President of the Communications Technologies Peer Group. Dean has 17 years of IT experience in industries including education, consulting and manufacturing. He can be reached at dean.leung@hklaw.com.

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