Those humble enterprise-class mobile devices

Many of the mobile devices we see in our daily lives, such as barcode scanners at convenience stores, Tablet PCs with touch pens for couriers, and handheld devices for warehouse administrators, have been obsolete for eight of years, long before the iphone appeared. These outdated enterprise-class electronic devices affect every aspect of our lives.

On the other side of consumer electronic equipment, new products are emerging, the performance is more and more strong, the application software is also diverse, and more and more intelligent. People who really need mobile computing power and good user experience are running around with old devices that are obsolete for more than 10 of years. In these years of dealing with big companies that use old equipment, I've seen many engineers spend a lot of time trying to squeeze 60 seconds out of their employees ' jobs in anticipation of higher productivity. But the problems brought by these old devices have burnt their efforts and even increased the cost.

To solve this problem, we need an enterprise-class operating system that is optimized for reliability and battery endurance. At the same time it needs to have a large file storage function, excellent encryption and privacy disclosure features. More importantly, its update cycle is within 24 months and promises not to shut down API interfaces for at least four years.

Why haven't there been such a system?

The speed of enterprise-class electronic product updates is different from consumer electronics. Our technicians may naturally feel that cloud computing is the way to solve this problem, but the reality of these companies is much more complicated.

The battery and network connectivity problems that companies use in these old handheld devices are in fact already being solved in consumer electronics. At the heart of the problem is that consumer electronics manufacturers have spent so much effort to solve these problems, and the industry market has not benefited a bit.

Many companies choose to directly equip their employees with consumer electronic equipment. Delta, for example, distributed more than 19,000 Nokia Lumia820s handsets to their flight attendants last year. However, this approach does not apply to all enterprises, warehouse managers, courier needs more robust, will not easily fail equipment.

The company's finances are the primary obstacle to this programme, and the purchasing habits of the enterprise are to buy equipment that is slow in depreciation and with a long time frame. Even if the company to the handheld device as a uniform rolling replacement, and the relevant enterprise software update can follow it? I'm afraid not. The way companies develop software is more standardized and, of course, much slower. Their goal is to develop safe and reliable applications, so the development of an application within 18 months can be considered fast, and the consumption side of the cycle is 12-24 months.

This paradox will become more pronounced in the future. The Consumer electronics market software updates faster and faster, software-driven hardware product changes will also accelerate. When employees are holding the company's handheld set, while using their novice machine can not help but wonder: why this old thing does not even have a GPS to spend 2000 knives, and my cell phone in all aspects of the explosion it can also sign a contract for free?

Who will stand up and build the enterprise UI we need?

Apple seems reluctant to allow non-Apple devices to run its operating system, which is a sign of being out of competition from big industrial projects. and the ability of a start-up to solve the complex situation of large enterprises is also difficult. This becomes a competition between Microsoft and Google.

Android is a good platform for global strategy because it can run on many different devices. This makes it possible for large multinationals to promote Android handsets around the world. And Google is not doing well in pandering to the corporate market, which could be a stumbling block.

Microsoft knows how to cater to a business, a tool chain that is familiar and often used by corporate IT departments. Now that Microsoft has the ability to build its own hardware, if Microsoft can create an enterprise-class mobile operating system that delivers reliable hardware solutions (or at least, as in the past, with Intermec/honeywell and Motorola), The promise will support it and merge with the innovation of consumer products, and companies may find their answers.

To cater to consumers, we have forgotten to design and build sophisticated products for people who need mobile devices to make a living. Enterprise markets need to change, eager for better design and faster updates. If one of the big three can do the right thing, as they have in the past decade to seize the consumer equipment market to launch the offensive, it will be a very viscous huge market.