I have the pleasure of introducing Telstra special guest Michael Covington, vice president of product strategy at Wandera -- an enterprise mobile security and data management company. He has been in IT for the past 20 years since he graduated with a PHD in access control modelling. Covington has worked for top IT vendors like Intel, Cisco, and Juniper Networks.
Organisations today are in the early days of mobile maturity and just about every company out there has embraced mobility as a communication tool. Employees are being given devices, bought by their company, to help them stay connected, when they're on the go outside of the office.
The mobile devices are being used for simple stuff like telephone calls, emails, and even text messaging. However, sophisticated organisations are starting to move beyond having a mobile device as a simple communication tool -- using mobility to do more.
Whether it's tethering a laptop or other devices to get connected to corporate datacentres or writing custom apps, these mobile devices aren't just used to access data, but also enrich it and interact with it. However, we have a long road to travel before we fully embrace and utilise mobility to its full extent.
That's not to say the journey of mobile adoption in the enterprise hasn't been an interesting one so far but we remain curious as to how innovative companies will unlock the potential of mobile devices to bring about transformational shifts in how their businesses operate.
Just look at where companies were about three to five years ago; they allowed mobility to be managed in 'federated pockets', so to speak. Their headquarters managed a complete set of devices and policies that differed from branch offices in other locations.
Now we're seeing