With Android smartphones being used by over 50% of smartphone users in the U.S. in Q4 2012, enterprises are increasingly being asked the question by employees, whether their new Android phone works with the company network and if they can move to using a single smartphone rather than two.
In this blog we discuss features of Android as a platform for enterprises and how enterprises can port to Android with minimum change to accommodate users of different smartphone platforms while providing users a richer experience with no compromise on enterprise security.
Executive summary
Google® Android™ with rich device usability and
great application eco-system has grown rapidly as the smartphone OS of choice
across the world. With a totally open developer environment and lower barriers
to develop on the platform, Android has fuelled innovation which is evident in
the thousands of innovative apps on the Android market.
Android over the past five years has evolved as the OS of
choice on majority of smartphone owned by Americans. After the release of the
version 2.2 of Android in Q2 2010, the platform adoption has increased by over
100% to over 50% majority in the US in Q2 2012.
A large part of the growth is evident in exodus of users of
Blackberry® and Windows Phone™ who never experienced the rich media
experience offered by their earlier platforms. With this move users are now
able to experience the ‘app’ revolution. According to a Nielsen survey in 2010,
57% of BlackBerry subscribers were most like to switch to Androids and looking
at the latest figures above this is visible.
Enterprises are now faced with the question from their
users; can I use my Android device on the enterprise network? It is not a
question about shunting users from moving away from Blackberry – they will, the
question is whether the enterprise is ready to accommodate the change and
provide the same kind of enterprise user experience offered by the existing
Blackberry infrastructure they have already invested in.
In the document we discuss features of Android as a
smartphone OS of choice and how it compares to the dying Blackberry OS and how
moving to an open and vibrant platform can benefit both enterprises and
government whilst not compromising on security.
Data security and encryption
Get in touch
with our team to understand more on how we can help at mailto:hello@supr.in
Introduction
Email, contacts and connectivity are characteristics
enterprises treat very carefully, and they want these to be extremely secure
for their managers and executives. Anything that is mission critical to their
business in terms of data and functionality, typically enterprises want to have
some pretty high level of security around its availability and access.
Research in Motion® (RIM), with its offering of
Blackberry was really the first mobile device manufacturer that was able to
deliver secure e-mail on mobile devices that actually worked. Initially there
wasn't a lot of competition, and only viable competition was from Microsoft®
with Pocket PC and Palm® products. RIM had a big advantage as they
were actually developing the operating system and making the hardware and
delivered a product that worked and was secure.
What sealed their perceived monopoly early on in the
enterprise mobility space was the release of the Blackberry Enterprise Server
(BES) which now allowed enterprises to deploy an enterprise grade mobile
solution. Enterprises could now deliver e-mail, contacts, wipe devices, set
policies on devices, push applications to devices all in a secure fashion.
Adopting the solution from RIM – Blackberry devices and BES to manage these
devices, gave enterprise and government the comfort level that the proper
security measures were in place and this saw wide adoption across corporate
America.
When Google entered the smartphone market with Android in
2007 many argued that Android as a platform was not ready for enterprise
adoption. Blackberry was able to deter any new entrant in the enterprise
mobility space. But with the exponential growth of Android as a smartphone OS
over the years and subsequent updates to the platform Android has emerged as a
dominant platform and has all the characteristics of an enterprise mobility
infrastructure.
With incredible losses in market share and exodus of faithful
users away from the platform, Blackberry is not yet a viable investment for
enterprises and governments when majority of their users are not on the
Blackberry platform.
Changes since Android became main-stream
The single dominant factor that has tipped the scales in
favour of Android is the Android Market. Users want “in” on the app revolution
and they want the rich media experience the OS offers. With its fresh looks and
ever growing app inventory users have embraced Android devices and with many variants
in terms of smartphones and tablets, users are able to perform everything they
used to do at their desk using these devices.
Users are now asking their enterprise IT managers if they
can use their Android device with their corporate network. Everything the
Blackberry and BES combination had offered earlier is available as an app on
their device and they have tried and tested it and are happy. But enterprises
are not ready and should now look at what is out there for them to accommodate
these.
Blackberry as a mobile device management (MDM) provider has
dominated in this space and still have a slight advantage because they are the
most proven solution available with deployments in governments, and world's
biggest enterprises.
But with growing user base of Android smartphones, many new
entrants in the mobile device management are seen delivering products similar
to BES. Enterprises can now adopt some of these newer devices, and still keep
the security measures in place.
What has really resulted in a setback to Blackberry is about
15% – 25% utilisation of the BES infrastructure as users have migrated to other
smartphone platforms. The BES and Blackberry combination does not still justify
as an investment. Enterprise should now think towards moving to a more robust
mobility solution and port their existing applications to Android.
What Android
offers is
- Device popularity
- Code quality
- Platform support
Android as an enterprise mobility platform
With the release of version 2.2 of Android and subsequent
versions, Android fulfils two most important requirements for enterprise
acceptance in mobile platforms security and device management. And with Android
now supporting Microsoft ActiveSync® technology which enables built-in support
for Microsoft Exchange – the cornerstone solution for secure corporate email
and many third-party apps, guarantees there’s always a host of choices to
replace BlackBerry-like functionality.
The Android Market now has
premium apps that parallel and even enhance all the features available on a BlackBerry.Switching over to Android for an enterprise
The important thing to consider when an enterprise decides
to switch over to Android is to, migrate the rich business data to the new
devices.
Android provides an application environment that ensures the
security of users, data, applications, the device, and the network. To achieve
the level of security enterprises today demand, Android provides some key
security features:
- Robust security at the OS level through the Linux kernel
- Application sandbox for all applications
- Secure inter-process communication
- Application signing
- Application-defined and user-granted permissions
- Strong security policies that prevent data security breaches
Version 3.0 and later of Android provides full file-system
encryption, so all user data can be encrypted in the kernel using industry
standard encryption techniques.
Custom application port to Android
Many enterprises have customised their users experience on
Blackberry and many of these were J2ME applications. Since Android runs
applications in Java, existing Java ME applications can be run on, or ported to
Android devices fairly simply. J2ME applications can be deployed to Android as
- Encapsulated within a J2ME emulator, or
- Rewrite the application using Android APIs natively.
Device Management and Data access
The Android Device Administration API provides device
administration at the system level. The built-in email application uses this
APIs to improve Exchange support; enterprise exchange administrators can
enforce password policies — including alphanumeric passwords or numeric PINs —
across devices.
Administrators can also remotely wipe lost or stolen
handsets.
Cloud based delivery of services and
application provisioning
Users ability to access corporate resources anytime,
anywhere – on employee-owned improves productivity, satisfactions and helps
company revenues. A cloud based content delivery solution to Android devices
makes managing growing base of devices simple and cost effective.
Comprehensive cost analysis and cloud control
With more number of Android devices in the enterprise there
is a greater dependency on cloud based services and this requires dedicated
network connectivity. The organisation can detect and control a devices data
usage in real-time and remediate against them to avoid non-budgeted data costs.
Android provides cost sensitive APIs; allowable by user to
control different cost parameters used by a device. These APIs can manage
Telephony, Messaging, Network, Data and In-App billing
Capability
Supr iLabs
can help your enterprise devise a mobile strategy around porting your existing
Blackberry applications to the Android platform in a cost effective manner. Our
team has been developing Android applications for over 3 years and has
experience working with clients across different industry verticals.
Conclusion
Android is today the most used smartphone OS in the US and
around the World. With a minimum support commitment of 18 months by many of
open handset alliance members, it is the platform you as an enterprise should
choose to deploy your applications.
Enterprises today are feeling the need to embrace new
technology and should move away from dying technologies such as Blackberry
which may not survive the stiff competition from more superior mobile
platforms. Android being a ground-breaking platform with offering more than
what was previously available on Blackberry should be the platform of choice to
build the next generation of enterprise apps.
The American government has embraced mobile technology and
has put across directives to deploy this technology to serve their citizens.
The vision is to allow American people to access services on their smartphones.
In this blog post we have discussed features of Android platform and how it can be used as an enterprise mobility solution.
If you want to build an application for your enterprise or port an existing Blackberry application, please get in touch with us at hello@supr.in