Redmond's Mobile Device Play

In the few months that I've owned it, I've really started to appreciate my Blackberry. Email and calendar at a glance - yes, it turns a person into a mindless cyborg, but at least I will be one of those who quietly acquiesce when our robot overlords decide to snap off my power supply.

But like all successful technologies, sooner or later, the Blackberry has become the target of me-too Microsoft. According to Information Week, the folks from Redmond are jumping into the market with both big, clumsy feet with a product named (with typical MS panache) System Center Mobile Device Manager:

The new server software will allow mobile devices to be managed and provisioned remotely much like PCs. It will also allow mobile professionals to connect to corporate VPNs using their mobile devices.

"The IT folks, the same as it was in the PC environment, don't want to roll out 10,000 devices. They want to roll out one device 10,000 times," Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg told Reuters. "Microsoft is hoping to replicate the success and the model of the PC."

Whee.

So instead of trying to improve the feature set and functionality of mobile devices, Microsoft has ceded that territory to companies that obviously put it to shame (RIM, Apple) - and instead they are attempting to deliver a toolset to the IT cops of the business world, the systems administration folks - for whom command-and-control uniformity is often the line of least resistance when the technology proves somewhat turbulent.

Not all network people have that mindset, of course - and if there's ever a group that gets a free beer courtesy of Mr. Spacetropic during the corporate happy hour it's the sysadmins - but everyone might reasonably agree that some of the most innovative uses of technology occur when the hardware isn't entirely "locked down" by the Ministry of You Can't Do That. Yes it involves risk, yes there are bonehead users that still need to be contained, and yes there's more work to do when the whole company isn't eating from the same trough.

But the world of mobile technology is changing, and - I would argue - having a very useful impact on the economy. Many forward-minded businesses should invest in a good mix of technologies, with the understanding that support can become a bigger challenge.

Tags: Microsoft, Mobile Devices, Blackberry