Failure is not an option

Dec 1, 2011 12:00 AM, An Urgent Communications staff report

But it is a real possibility. While the public-safety, government and enterprise sectors are understandably excited about the communications future, myriad obstacles threaten to not only slow the migration to next-generation technology but derail it completely — a prospect too frightening to contemplate.

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Just another tool on the belt

The enterprise, public-safety and military sectors are undergoing transformations thanks to the proliferation of smartphones and tablets. As workers demand to use these devices and IT leaders recognize their ability to reduce cost and improve efficiency, agencies within these sectors must find ways to effectively manage these devices while capitalizing on their benefits.

The trend — known as the consumerization of the enterprise — is well-known in the private sector. Rather than purchasing smartphones for their workers, many businesses now are allowing workers to bring their own devices into the workplace. Corporate security policies are then handled via mobile device management (MDM) solutions and other security measures such as “sandboxing,” which provides an encrypted container at the application level to secure applications and services.

In the public-safety and military markets, BlackBerry devices already have made an appearance due to their high security standards. However, they primarily have been used for secure access to e-mail and calendars. Now a move is afoot to allow more consumer-oriented devices.

“Agencies are looking at a tool to do the job that goes on the belt like the gun and the night stick,” said Brian Reed, chief marketing officer with MDM firm BoxTone. “Smartphones are becoming part of the mission.”

Reed said that he is witnessing swift adoption of smartphones in federal, state and local agencies. Tablet adoption is still in the infancy stage, but agencies have an eye on adopting 5- and 7-inch form factors in the field that are capable of providing fast-access to critical data.

SIDEBAR: What we’d like to see happen in 2012

The military has been studying the adoption of consumer devices for some time. Recently, the Department of Defense approved the use of Dell’s Android-based mobile operating system, a move that is expected to pave the way for wider use of Android-based smartphones and tablets throughout the military.

In addition, the Defense Information Systems Agency has certified Dell’s Mobile Security for Android platform for information assurance and use on defense networks, said Joe Ayers, an executive in Dell’s government business, in a recent blog post.

Dell also has developed a solution for the Android OS — in partnership with Redwood City, Calif., mobile app developer Good Technology — that gives users secure access to e-mail, documents, a partitioned ecosystem of Android apps and other business applications. Through Dell’s Android platform and the mobile device management offered by Good Technology’s Good for Government system, information can be passed and managed through Microsoft Exchange servers, as well as network operations centers, wirelessly. Certified and piloted on the Deal Streak 5, the certification will allow the next wave of Dell Android devices, set for release next year, to be integrated rapidly into military environments, Ayers said.

Smartphones are becoming more attractive to the public sector as it with doing more with less, said Donald Denning, chief information officer for the city of Boston, whose government agencies — including the police department — have adopted consumer devices. “We need to become more flexible and innovative in ways that we have not before and make the investments,” Denning said. “Smartphones are a force multiplier, and we are able to have the same number of people we have but doing a better job because they have the right tools.”

At the Boston Police Department, consumerization is well underway, said John Daly, the department’s chief technology officer. Because of security issues, the police department hasn’t officially adopted smartphones other than the BlackBerry, but Daly said that his agency is working to put the right policies in place to allow a myriad of consumer devices to be used within the agency.

Already, a handful of enterprising detectives have repurposed third-party apps on their personal iPhones to track their contacts, complete with photos, Denning said.

Daly said that the police department is looking at adding internal applications as well as developing innovative ways to interact with the public.

“We’ve been doing social networking,” Daly said. “We want to take that to the next level. We have a lot of applications that we push to the public. We want to take that beyond a mobile-optimized Web page to something more interactive. We’re talking to developers about different apps, and internally we are looking at how to allow our existing records management systems to interact with apps on smartphones.”

Reed said that the Holy Grail for the public-safety community is instant communications — the ability to access case histories and photos. “Imagery is one of the game changers,” Reed said.

“Capturing an image of a person or car and sharing it instantly across a group is very powerful.”

Of course that’s the same mentality associated with bringing public-safety LTE networks online, but until then, first responders can obtain the technology via commercial networks. — Lynnette Luna