Enterprise Mobility & Connected Devices Blog

Managed Services in Mobility, An Intel-McAfee Context

Market leadership in the enterprise and government mobility solutions markets requires support for managed services. 

Maybe not in 2010, but, soon.  Every year for the past three years, our research into virtually every mobility solutions stakeholder community reveals growing investment in exploring migration to managed services models.  Now, they are beginning to show sustained growth in migration to managed services deployment models. 

We use the word sustained because for much of 2008 and 2009, the interest in managed services models for enterprise mobility was as much about capital cost reduction (or elimination) as it was about some of the other advantages of managed services over traditional hardware acquisition, software licensing and support contracting. 

During 2009, for example, our channel research noted off-guideline pricing or exceptional discounting requests from channels to suppliers was up 1000% or more from 2007.  That is not a typo:  10X.  Inquiry regarding managed services support were up nearly 500% or 5X during the same period. 

The primary driver:  money.  No one had any.  When the market probed, and found, the basement in pricing, it went to a new deployment model that changed the conversation from capital budgets to operating budgets.  Instead of talking about capex, folks were talking about opex. 

This was true -- is true -- in a number of markets, including enteprise and government mobility. 

The operative word here is 'is'. 

We continue to see growing, sustained demand for managed services development, deployment and management models in enterprise and government mobility solutions.  The demand curve is not neat.  Near-term penetration is not uniform across any market segmentation dimension.  No standard processes have been developed and percolated to foam the runway for migrators. 

However, the three-pronged value proposition of managed services in mobility markets is resonating loudly.  So loudly that it is nearly equal to the strength of the number one barrier to managed services migration in enterprise and government mobility markets:  SECURITY. 

Which brings us to Intel and McAfee.  We are not going to write another analysis of that deal -- there are many out there.  Most regarding the deal from a fairly high altitude.  Some with a topical focus on Managed Services. 

Our focus here is on the enterprise and government mobility markets where real time transaction processing drives requirements.  And in these markets, security is the number one barrier to migration to managed services. 

We, too have many questions.  About the value of the deal.  The roadmap for embedded McAfee solutions, or solution elements in Intel platforms.  The path to incorporating McAfee technology into alternative platforms, including FPGA. 

With the McAfee acquisition, Intel secures access to a number of technologies that its product and market managers have embraced -- and that the managed services adopters will demand.