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Posted on October 17th, 2011 in Consumerization, Current News by Simply Security | Be the first to comment | Tags: Current News

Recent releases of the Apple iPhone 4S and the Amazon Kindle Fire will only add to the IT consumerization trend.

A pair of recent product releases from two of the biggest names in the technology industry have sent the mobile industry into a frenzy. One is a low-cost tablet that promises to introduce the devices to the masses, while the other is the latest in a long line of extremely popular and successful smartphones.

They are, of course, Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet and Apple's iPhone 4S. Both were highly anticipated before finally being introduced during the past two weeks – the Kindle Fire intro closed out September, while Apple opened October with the iPhone 4S. Experts are expecting both devices to create quite a stir – pre-orders for the Kindle Fire have reportedly surpassed 250,000 – in both the consumer and enterprise markets.

For companies, the tablet and the smartphone could present plenty of new opportunities for enterprise mobility, placing them squarely in the driver's seat of IT consumerization.

Enterprise mobility experts can't seem to avoid discussing consumerization in some capacity. The trend – which was essentially created by the iPhone when it comes to mobility – started off as a nightmare for most IT departments. Issues of data security and lack of control over consumer-based and personally owned smartphones made made for serious headaches and security risks for most tech departments.

But as the smartphone and overall mobile device market grew, so too did the calls from employees to break away from the one-device-for-all mobility strategy. No longer are mobile professionals satisfied with the BlackBerry their company is willing to give them, especially when the grass seems greener with the iPhone and devices powered by Google's Android mobile operating system.

Several recent studies and reports have demonstrated just how far the consumerization of enterprise mobility has gone.

Take Forrester Research's latest poll on the subject, 42 percent of respondents said they have a BlackBerry for work purposes. That was far and away the top choice, but cracks in the device's hold on the enterprise market were also evident. Consider that 26 percent of respondents use an Android device at work and 22 percent said they have an iPhone.

Furthermore, the latest report from industry analysis firm comScore highlighted the continued market eroson for BlackBerry. The platform's share dropped 5 percent between May and August and is now down to 19.7 percent.

Then iPass, a provider of enterprise mobility management solutions, released a survey that found 73 percent of respondents allow non-IT managed devices to access their company networks. The figure spiked to 82 percent when talking about just small- and medium-sized businesses.

Get ready for the trend to soon hit another level, with the Kindle Fire and the iPhone 4S as the catalysts.

Amazon, better known as the giant of ecommerce and provider of cloud services, jumped head-first into the tablet market with the Android-based Kindle Fire and is already being considered by some as an early challenger to Apple's market dominance. That's due mostly to the low cost of the device, which starts at $199. An iPad 2 starts at $499.

Since many companies' IT budgets remain tight due to the sluggish economy, a less expensive device that offers relatively the same computing power and and is just as portable is sure to catch the attention of mobility administrators and mobile professionals alike.

Of course, the Kindle Fire may also represent Internet security concerns given its use of the new Silk browser. Security professionals are unfamiliar with the browser and could be unsure how to protect mobile users surfing the Web with it, adding another complicating layer to the consumerization trend.

What makes Silk so foreign to security professionals is the split browsing architecture, which is unlike most other offerings on the market. According to PCWorld, the effort to load a Web page on the tablet is split between the actual device and Amazon's cloud computing service, allowing for pages and images to load much quicker than with a traditional browser.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said the split browsing architecture will eliminate "a lot of the delays in loading a Web site." However, it may also be something that a company's security professionals will want to explore deeper in order to identify any data security considerations that must be taken into account before deploying the tablet.

Then there's the iPhone 4S. Initially Apple enthusiasts – of which there are many – were disappointed they weren't getting the long-rumored iPhone 5. Still, the latest in the long line of wildly popular Apple smartphones contains more than incremental updates over the now year-and-a-half-old iPhone 4.

And if anything can be said of the cult following Apple has created with its products it's that consumers want the latest and the greatest technology. That was evident earlier this year when the company rolled out the iPad 2 just about a year after introducing its original tablet. Owners of original iPads jumped at the chance to get the newest tablet even if their current device was less than a year old.

Companies should expect the same when it comes to the iPhone 4S. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has predicted Apple will sell 25 million iPhones during the fourth quarter and 111 million units during the next calendar year. Even without the "5" attached to the newest iPhone's moniker, Munster warned consumers to prepare to wait in long lines to get their hands on the 4S.

Both the Kindle Fire and iPhone 4S will be available for purchase during the next several weeks, so now is the time for companies to prepare for a likely spike in demand among mobile employees. A proactive approach to data security on mobile devices and the implementation of policies for their use will ensure that enterprise information is protected and users learn what to avoid and how to spot potential threats that could endanger the company's network.

Consumerization News from SimplySecurity.com by Trend Micro