Its Open Source Dude, Deal with It.

Nice little article over at eWeek by Clint Boulton. The jest of the piece is that the Android G1 is not ready for prime time enterprise deployments. Now as it is right now that is the case But I will attempt to point out after the jump why that is parochial –

Mort Rosenthal, CEO of Enterprise Mobile, which helps companies plan enterprise mobility implementations for devices based on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, discussed why the G1 doesn’t pass the enterprise mobility acid test with me Oct. 21.

I know what you’re thinking. Rosenthal would seem to have good reason to knock the G1 down a few pegs. This may be particularly true given the speculation from GigaOm’s Om Malik via eWEEK’s own Joe Wilcox that Windows Mobile is the odd man out in the accelerating smart-phone race between Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and Nokia’s Symbian. You may well be right.

Yet what Rosenthal told me makes solid sense, as long as you agree that the so-called cloud, or Internet, is no platform on which to base a device designed to house and transmit sensitive and proprietary corporate information.

Rosenthal said what’s missing in cloud computing from an enterprise perspective is control of the information in the cloud. Most enterprises are not going to be happy with an open communication structure.

Followed by…

Now the G1 finds itself in the same boat, requiring not only Exchange integration but some degree of device management, which would allow a lost device to be wiped, as well as ways to control what is and isn’t put on the device. Rosenthal added:

Google’s strength is not really in enterprise-specific tools. It’s not clear whether that will ever emerge from Google. It certainly may emerge from people who take the open-source [Android platform] and build on top of it. No one will say the cloud is the most secure environment.

One company that might help with securing Android devices is Mocana, which Oct. 22 unveiled its NanoPhone Suite for Android, which lets developers build firewall, VPN and encryption features for Android handsets. But Mocana is not enough.

Rosenthal said the ideal scenario for the G1 would be a range of integration that involves applications and connection to back-end enterprise systems.

The 5 reasons this is a effete FUD piece –

1. I hate FUD pieces and this is just over the border a classic example of that archtype of writing.
2. Enterprise snobbery. 80% of all businesses are 100 employees or less as plumbers, electricians, carpet cleaners, etc. They don’t have state secrets, unless having Sam the flunky bring over another 2″ plumbing wye will bring down the western world. Realizing that is the case, having a phone lacking SOX compliant enterprise features is not a earth shaking need as most would think in the scheme of things. eg iPhone, Motos success.
3. Given that this is an early introduction and the fact that Android is open source the big enterprises now have the opportunity to morph the OS to their will. They throw a couple of programmers at it, cobble together some encryption of their own and be done with it till a better 3rd party product comes alone.
4. But that is the point isn’t it? Being Open Source the Android platform is malleable beyond anything that either RIM or fruitPhone offer. The platform base and options will transcend anything for any other supplier. Even for enterprise snobby reporters.
5. The cloud is not the issue that the article paints it to be. If your message base is encrypted going into the cloud it should be so leaving it as a reasonable expectation. Over 50% of most messages today are transported in the clear over broadband. Probably that same % of traffic is done so in the wireless realm. If security is a concern it is applied, little noticed to the cloud. A FUDish red herring if there ever was one.

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