steVe BoURne
i don’t see how
existing wireless
carriers in the
U.s. will be able to
make the required
capital investment
to handle the
increased demand
for services.
Certainly that is
the case in the
next year or two.

phones—with the mix depending on where you are in the world. The transports are also diverse. Some countries have a lot of data access. Other places, data services just aren’t available.

I have worked with mainframes, client server, and Internet-based computing. Mobile is the hardest kind of computing I’ve experienced because it is a fragmented and rapidly changing device market. You have at least 18 platforms or operating systems, and they’re in constant flux.

IT organizations may want to build that mobile expertise in-house, but that’s not an effective strategy as the mobile device market is moving way too fast. Growing mobile expertise organically is hard and chances are your company would make too many rookie mistakes. Either hire or outsource to contractors with the expertise and get it right the first time.

As an IT manager, you should ask, “How fast do I need to move?” “How many platforms do I need to support?” and “In how many geographies do I need to operate?” It is important to understand that this is not just another operating system. It is a rapidly moving environment, and it’s just going to change faster and get more fragmented over time.

neViLLe-neiL: In embedded computing, every product is different and

every customer is different. If someone powerful in the company buys an iPhone or Android, he or she then drives the IT department to support it. It’s a very customer-driven model.

CReeGeR: How do the IT folks avoid being buffeted by everybody coming at them at once?

ReaLini: You just get used to it. If you think the world is all about iPhone and Android, just blink and it will be something else. It’s going to be a fragmented environment, and it will depend on your application. If you are a large financial services firm, then you may be able to dictate that everybody use BlackBerries. You don’t have that luxury if you’re doing consumer-facing applications. Every current and future device is part of my world, and we must have strategies to leverage those devices even as the mix of those devices changes constantly.

An interesting question to ask is, “What chance does Android have of becoming the universal operating platform for mobile—the mobile equivalent of Microsoft on the desktop?”

ChaRLanD: I don’t think you can ever make that assumption about any platform. A year ago, I would have said iPhone would be the universal operating platform for mobile. Today it seems like Android, but things are