BoxTone Urges Enterprises to Prepare for the $2Billion Ticking Time-Bomb of Mobile Support; Warns Pure-Play Mobile Device Management Tools are Limited and Commoditizing
COLUMBIA, Md., March 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- BoxTone, the expert in proactive Mobile Service Management (MSM) software, today urges enterprises to prepare for the inevitable wave of mobile support calls and increased support costs when activating millions of new mobile devices, tablets and applications across their distributed workforce. BoxTone estimates these companies are leaving themselves exposed to unfunded support costs, which equate to USD$2billion per year (1), and substantial risks to mobile service quality.
In their rush to mobilize, many organizations are focused on Mobile Device Management (MDM) – a critical component for securely provisioning and managing mobile devices and applications. However, they are failing to include the necessary strategies to address the entire mobile lifecycle, including device, support, operations, and business management. Further, since these MDM capabilities are largely dictated by the functions made available through the device and platform vendors, the pure MDM offerings are limited and becoming commoditized.
"Many MDM solutions leave IT staff believing that once devices are provisioned and configured, they can move on to other projects – a 'set it and forget it' philosophy," said Brian Reed, chief marketing officer and vice president of Products at BoxTone. "However, having supported and managed more than 800,000 mobile users across hundreds of customers over the past five-years, we have seen that large-scale, long-term mobile deployments are quickly followed by an explosion in support calls that most help desk staffs are ill-equipped to handle. Mobile support management is an unbudgeted ticking time-bomb that enterprise IT must prepare for now, or pay ten times as much later."
Aberdeen Group's recent benchmark study Enterprise Mobility Management 2011: Mobility Becomes Core IT revealed that provisioning (the primary mission of MDM) is but one of six essential capabilities that define the full enterprise mobile management lifecycle, which includes: operations and support, performance management, compliance and security, expense management and decommissioning.
Aberdeen Senior Analyst Andrew Borg commented, "Mobile end-user support is a critical requirement for all enterprises, and 'Best in Class' organizations are way out ahead. In our most recent study, we found that help desk costs increased at a rate six times higher for 'Laggards' than they did for 'Best in Class' organizations. Proactive support automation also helped reduce help desk call times for the 'Best in Class' to half that of 'Laggards.' This demonstrates that a focus on proactive support automation has positive service and cost impact on the enterprise, and that organizations that ignore mobile support issues do so at their own peril."
This notion was further validated by the Help Desk Institute (HDI), the world's largest IT service and technical support membership association. In a February 2011 article titled, The Mobility Revolution and Its Consequences for Support, HDI stated, "mobile device support is, at its core, another service offered by IT to the organization; as such, it should be introduced using the same processes as any other new service. IT service management is broad enough to accommodate this new wave of technology. Just remember to focus on the services, not on the devices, because the devices will change rapidly."
Reed concluded, "Mobility management needs to take a page from the IT Service Management (ITSM) best practices book – which for years has recognized IT must proactively support the needs of the business at a reasonable cost and risk. Clearly this is not a 'set it and forget it' world and the exploding mobility wave needs a control point—before IT is run over with help desk requests and exploding costs. In other words, Mobile Service Management must ensure service desk support management as the critical next step beyond MDM."
BoxTone's Mobile Service Management platform is the industry's only mobile management solution to span the full mobile lifecycle of Mobile Device Management, Mobile Support Management, Mobile Operations Management and Mobile Business Management; ensuring that enterprises have a single point of control to continuously deliver the highest mobile performance and security at the lowest cost and risk. Today, BoxTone's software is used by 40 of the Fortune 100 companies, four of the five largest U.S. Banks, five of the top six U.S. Federal agencies and all of the major managed service providers (MSPs) to provide mobile device, support and operations management across more than 800,000 mobile users, devices, and applications.
Brian Reed will be at CTIA WIRELESS, March 22-24, 2011, discussing BoxTone's MSM approach as a way to achieve a cost-effective, performance-optimized, secure mobility infrastructure. To schedule a briefing or meeting with BoxTone, please contact: [email protected].
About BoxTone
With more than 800,000 devices under management, BoxTone's proactive Mobile Service Management (MSM) platform is trusted by more than 320 of the world's leading enterprises and government agencies, including 40 of the Fortune® 100, to continuously maintain optimal mobile performance & security at the lowest cost and risk. BoxTone's single unified mobile management platform powered by patented real-time automation technology addresses the entire mobile lifecycle: mobile device management, support management, operations management and business management. BoxTone delivers real-time centralized control of all mobile devices including BlackBerry, Apple iPhone and iPad, Google Android, Nokia Symbian and Windows Phone devices; mobile connectivity services including BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Microsoft ActiveSync and Good Technology; and enterprise mobile applications. Learn more from the expert in proactive Mobile Service Management and Mobile Device Management software solutions at www.boxtone.com, or call +1 410.910.3344.
BoxTone and the BoxTone logo are trademarks of BoxTone. All other product or company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.
(1) Calculation based on Fortune 1000
Contacts:
Joel Weinshank
Director, Marketing at BoxTone
410-910-3360
[email protected]
Patrick Dixon
Ruder Finn for BoxTone
212-593-6441
[email protected]
SOURCE BoxTone
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