I'm not sure who coined it, but the term "executive bling" is not only funny, but has been a very accurate descriptor of mobile enablement in many of today's organizations. While nearly everyone now carries their own personal device with them at all times, in many organizations, executives continue to be an elite group that are offered a device (or choice of devices) once they attain a certain 'rank' at their place of employment. However, BYOD policy adoption continues to impact mobile enablement in large organizations (59% of the respondents to our latest survey claimed to have a formal BYOD support program in place) and has created a significant market opportunity for mobile-first ISVs. CSO's know that unprotected and unmanaged devices are likely to expose their organization to risks such as unauthorized access and data leakage – for this reason, VDC expects the number of devices "under management" to continue to grow rapidly and is the reason why our forecast for enterprise-oriented mobile solutions is so bullish. Our soon to be released global EMM market forecast shows a 24.6% CAGR from 2012 to 2017 for the ever-broadening solution range that is EMM.

MDM is Dead?

Some have boldly proclaimed that the MDM market is dead; that is pure bunk. The need for centralized oversight of configuration control, application usage and device protection couldn't be more important moving forward – the market is far from dead, it has just evolved. Not to mention that the usage of 3rd party software from EMM providers will increasingly be required for deployment environments where compliance reporting mandates the ability to conduct auditable events – in these scenarios, EMM solutions are needed to compensate for the technical limitations of even the latest mobile operating systems.  Bottom line, MDM solutions are foundational to EMM vendors’ platforms. What has changed, is the emphasis on data at rest and in motion – and of course the applications. Moving forward, I see this shift straining the partnerships that EMM vendors have engaged in and creating pressure on the strategic interactions among competing firms. This is a topic that will be expanded on in our upcoming (September) EMM Report.