Why IBM thinks Windows Phone is best for the enterprise

As BlackBerry fades out, Microsoft's phone is the choice of enterprises to replace it.

The BYOD movement is how Apple got into the enterprise, but if it were up to IT pros, you'd be issued a Windows Phone. That's what IBM has found in its work with large firms.

Jim Szafranski, senior VP of customer platform services at IBM's FIberlink unit, told Redmond Mag that many of its enterprise customers would like to see their employees use Windows Phone for work-related activities because of its tight integration with Microsoft's back-end systems, but he added that WP continues to trail in popularity to that of iPhones and Android devices.

"Actual end user momentum is trailing business interest," Szafranski said. "IT likes Microsoft and likes Windows. They've made a lot of investment in things like Active Directory and Exchange and as a result they have a lot of interest in seeing Windows Phone used by employees. I don't think anyone is going to be all Windows on mobile, but enterprises do want it and I think they have a strong opportunity when it comes to the enterprise side of purchase decisions."

Windows Phone's base remains smaller, at just 3% of the market at the end of Q4 2013, according to IDC. Still, that was a 46% growth over the year prior, but it's still being greatly outpaced by Android and iPhone. Android has ubiquity, iPhone has Apple's cool factor. Windows Phone can't seem to grab either.

IBM recently acquired Fiberlink Communications, maker of the MaaS360 mobile device management platform, and it was the strong IT interest in Windows Phone that made IBM decide to support WP, even with its meager installed base, Szafranski said. The company announced the addition of WP to the MaaS360 product line at the recent Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona and at the IBM Pulse conference in Las Vegas.

The company's MaaS360 Productivity Suite provides secure email, calendaring, contacts and a browser. This lets IT separate personal apps and data from enterprise software and information. Should the need arise, IT can remotely manage or wipe the enterprise side of the phone while leaving the user's personal data and apps untouched.

Windows Phone 8 has some significant enterprise-oriented features, which IBM and its customers have clearly recognized. WP8 supports the United Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) secure boot protocol and advanced app "sandboxing" to isolate apps within the phone. It has hardware-accelerated BitLocker technology to encrypt the entire device, Exchange ActiveSync management, Active Directory and Group Policy features for remote management, and Skype/VoIP integration.

The big question now is whether IBM will take up the flag for WP. It has no dog in this fight since it does not sell handsets. IBM is, for all intents and purposes, a services and software company. Hardware sales are now in the single-digits with the x86 server divestiture. Microsoft couldn't ask for a better ally. A seriously ironic one, given their histories, but a major ally none the less.

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Extensive video of the HTC M8 leaks, HTC gets real mad

Plus, the tidal wave of Flappy Bird clones plaguing the Play Store, news about LG’s own-brand flagship, and persistent rumors of a metal Galaxy S 5 variant.

Strategically leaking information about upcoming smartphones and tablets to the press is a favorite way for manufacturers to create buzz around their products without having to spoil everything in an official reveal. This has been your tech marketing tip of the day, thank you, you've been a lovely audience.

All right, if you must know, I bring this up because a surprisingly lengthy video showing HTC’s upcoming M8 in detail was released by someone apparently named Roshan Jamkatel earlier this week.

A couple of things – no, it’s not Roger Ebert or anything in terms of deep criticism, and this isn’t the original video, because Jamkatel yanked it after HTC senior global online communications manager Jeff Gordon came down the mountain after him on Twitter, saying that Jamkatel “wasn’t going to have a good week,” and responding that HTC had the IMEI of the device after young Roshan tried to claim that it was a fake phone. (Most of the tweets have been deleted, but Wired, among others has screengrabs of the conversation.)

It got weirder from there – Jamkatel asked other users, in vain, not to repost the video, Gordon deleted a bunch of his tweets (citing an ongoing investigation) after others jumped on him for threatening a kid, and there was a suggestion that Jamkatel’s parents were HTC workers and would be fired for his indiscretion. (Another Twitter user suggests that this may not be true.)

As usual, nobody really knows anything, although the thunderous response from a senior HTC exec suggests that the phone in the video is probably genuine. If HTC didn’t leak the phone on purpose, why would they care about a bogus amateur video? And if it’s a choreographed leak, why would they use a fake phone?

Assuming, then, that the M8 in question is the real deal, the video is pretty enlightening. Dual rear-mounted cameras seem to be a go, the hardware buttons along the bottom of the screen are history, an SD card slot has been added. The right-side mounted volume rocker on the HTC One has been retained, but it’s now slightly raised, making it a lot easier to find by touch, and the headphone jack has been moved to the bottom of the device. Like its chief competitor, the Samsung Galaxy S 5, the new HTC flagship looks to be an evolutionary device, not a revolutionary one.

Mobile gaming’s never been an industry with too many scruples about simply copying successful products, but the sheer number of Flappy Bird clones on the Google Play Store is pretty amazing. Infesting the “top free games” section are Clumsy Bird, Splashy Fish, Floppy Bird Pro, and Hoppy Frog, and that’s just at a glance. Moving along, there’s a version featuring the head of rapper Drake called “Tiny Flying Drizzy,” a similar entry called “Flying Miley Cyrus,” 3D Flying Bird, and Jumpy Jack. Believe me when I tell you I could go on.

Seriously, just make it stop. Either that, or somebody please make a version using the art assets from Angry Birds, so that they can get sued so hard by Rovio that a quantum singularity of lazy rip-off artists appears and sucks all the Flappy Bird clones into the next dimension.

The biggest splash that LG has made in the Android market lately has been as the manufacturer of Google’s Nexus 5 and as a competitor in the fascinating and stupid world of curved-screen smartphones.

That may be about to change, however, as BGR reports that the LG G3 is headed for a summer launch date, with the idea of letting the Galaxy S 5 hype die down a little.

According to the report, the G3 will have an impressive 13MP camera that also incorporates optical image stabilization, based on a forum posting that purported to show a photo taken with said camera.

Ever since the iPhone 5 launched in 2012, metal-bodied smartphones have carried a certain cachet. One of the factors that fans of the HTC One cite when comparing it to its rival Galaxy S 4 is the aluminum construction, and there’s a long-standing school of thought that says Samsung’s plastic designs make its phones seem cheap.

Almost as long-standing as that school of thought are the rumors that Samsung is going to break its habits and release a metal Android phone – the latest is a report from GSM Arena that says the Samsung Galaxy F could be being readied for release, citing South Korean news outlets. Little else is known about the purported Galaxy F, but GSM Arena does pass along the tidbit that it could boast a 2560x1600 display. Yikes.

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Everything You Know About Enterprise Security Is Wrong

Whether you're talking about your network, your company's building or your home, a perimeter approach to security is no longer adequate. As McAfee discussed at this week's RSA Conference, you can't provide physical or electronic security simply by trying to prevent authorized access -- you have to rethink all types to security to protect data and lives.

The obsolescence of enterprise security was at the core of McAfee's talk this week at the RSA Conference in San Francisco. The Target breach clearly showcased that you simply can't secure a company by trying to prevent unauthorized access, malware or any other internal or external security breach.

You have to step back and recognize that someone is going to break in and you must therefore focus on catching them before they can do any damage. This is a very different approach to security, and the lessons apply to both home and business and both electronic and physical security approaches. As an older woman who lives near me discovered this week when armed men pushed into her house and stole her safe, a perimeter approach to security is no longer adequate.

McAfee's presentation was so compelling it actually held my wife's interest because she could see how the lessons learned could be applied more broadly to personal defense.

McAfee argued it is in a war-like arms race, and its lead offering, which I spoke about last week (Threat Intelligence Exchange), is only the start of the first battle.

McAfee Agrees With Blackberry
One of the things I found fascinating about the talk by Mike Fay, McAfee's CTO, was how closely it aligned with what Blackberry has been saying about mobile devices for some time. You can't layer on security anymore. If you want security you have to design it in from the ground up.

If you layer it on, an attacker will just figure out a way to go under the security layer and render it useless. If you think of this in terms of the human body, security is kind of like what you do when someone has a severe immune deficiency. You put them in a bubble and hope nothing penetrates it. The reason we all don't live in bubbles is that our immune system is an integral part of our makeup.

We survive because our bodies have defenses built into them. These anti-bodies can fight a virus or illness that gets inside and can learn over time and immunize us for things that may not have even existed when we were born.

McAfee and Blackberry are on the same page and believe the only way to really get ahead of the security problem is to aggressively design systems that can successfully defend themselves, which is where McAfee is going as it starts working with Intel to make the processors part of the security solution and where Blackberry has been working to assure everything from its phones to its services are designed with security as a key element.

Applying Theory to Physical Security
Think of our homes, businesses, schools and government agencies. These structures are largely designed to make it hard for people to get in, but once people get inside the perimeter, defenses are pathetic. The mass killings on school campuses, that poor woman I mentioned above and even the Edward Snowden breach all showcased that perimeter security is not only inadequate for electronic defenses, it is inadequate for physical ones as well.

Schools and businesses should have trackers that identify people who don't belong or don't belong where they have gone. They should have microphones that pick the sounds of gunfire or a person screaming for help and automatically trigger a response much like a fire alarm does if it senses smoke or fire. As with electronic security, people need to become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. We need to report suspicious activity and know what to do if we find ourselves in the middle of a crime.

You can't simply rely on the police or electronic security anymore. We have to step up and empower people to help protect themselves and others around them.

And this isn't just for company campuses, as the attacks on Google and Apple employees here in California showcased (even Google customers have been attacked here), we need to think about what might happen should our employees be put at risk going to or from work. The world has changed. It is more hostile, and we need to change how we electronically and physically protect those things dear to us or accept becoming an ugly part of a bad statistic.

It's Time to Rethink Security
I think it is well past time we rethought both the physical and electronic methods we use to protect our firms and homes. McAfee/Intel's approach electronically makes a ton of sense to me, but it doesn't address physical security. The concept of an Arcology does, but even that may not go far enough and there are a number of efforts underway to rebuild our society into safer harbors using that concept.

What I'm suggesting, though, is that you take a moment and think about physical security and how well you are protected against a disgruntled armed attacker inside your firm or your home and what you and your people should do if that kind of attack happens on your watch. We tend to think in terms of physical or electronic protection, but we need to be thinking and instead.

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