Let's face it, the future of the mobile enterprise will include many different types of devices: RIM's BlackBerry, Microsoft's Windows Mobile, Apple's iPhone and Google Android. In tandem with device agnosticism, IT managers will need to embrace different applications and app platforms as well as different devices.

In order for this to happen, though, IT managers will have to begin looking at mobile devices and mobile applications through the same lens. This means that mobile device management and mobile application management will need to blend.

The blending of device and application management into one new system will require some new thinking on the part of CIOs and IT managers. This new system will require better systems for policy creation and policy enforcement and, more importantly, it will necessitate more openness in enterprise computing.

This emerging paradigm (I know, 1990s word, please forgive me for using it) of enterprise mobility will require a new way of thinking on the part of IT managers and on enterprises in general. It will require more openness on both the desktop and the smartphone, not less. And I am not convinced, despite what they tell me, that many CIOs are ready for this new order.

Mobile analyst Philippe Winthrop made a great case for this new system in a recent blog post. Let's take a look at what he wrote:

Unfortunately, not all mobile application solutions can do this. My sense is that mobile application configuration is going to become an increasingly important topic. Let's take the example of when someone is roaming internationally. The individual will need to have access to the data on the device, so you don't want the device management solution that you have in place (you DO have a MDM solution in place don't you?) to block international data roaming, but you do want the application to be aware of the fact that it's now going to cost you more to upload and/or download data. Shouldn't there be policies in place for that? Shouldn't there be some sort of throttle to provide core data access and then either provide warnings and/or prevent the individual from syncing data when you're roaming?

Let's take it one step further. Should this kind of functionality reside on the back-end of the application...or wouldn't it be nice if the IT administrator can view these kinds of options directly from his or her cross platform mobile device management console. Yes, it would be nice. What I mean by this is that the software platform publisher would provide open APIs that device management companies could then leverage.

I think Winthrop is right here, but in order for this to work, application providers are going to have to give IT managers a lot more control than they have today. This would require companies like Apple, Google and Facebook to open up parts of their platforms to IT managers. While I don't think this will happen in the short-term, I think it could happen, especially if these vendors can identify a business model that makes this work in both their interests and in the interests of enterprise IT. And when this happens, business will be able to do things with mobile computing that both IT and enterprise end-users have been waiting on for a very long time.

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