Phablets, Tablets And Video To Increase Data Challenge for Enterprises

Enterprises have been warned that consumer trends such as larger screen devices and rising amounts of video are likely to have an impact on future IT requirements as employee data consumption rises.

For the first time, Citrix’s Mobile Analytics Report has analysed consumer data trends alongside enterprises use, claiming that the mature consumer market can provide advance warning for IT departments wanting to implement effective mobility strategies.

“The line between personal and business mobility continues to blur as people routinely use the same smartphones and tablets across every part of their lives. It’s no longer possible to maintain artificial boundaries of personal and business mobility,” said Chris Fleck, vice president of Mobility Solutions and Alliances, Citrix.

Citrix mobility report

The report found that users of the iPhone 6 Plus used twice as much data as owners of the smaller iPhone 6 as the former’s larger screen is more suited to video. Additionally the top five mobile games ranked by data volume contained video content – indicative of the challenge that mobile video is causing network infrastructure.

The number of enterprise-managed mobile devices has increased by 72 percent year-on-year, partly motivated by the desire to secure information by protecting against the loss or theft of a device, but also to control what kind of applications employees can use.

Dropbox and native email apps are among the most blacklisted apps, while Microsoft OneNote, Microsoft Lync and Adobe are among the most likely to be whitelisted. However Facebook and Twitter appear on both the most banned and most permitted lists as some firms believe they hinder productivity, while others want employees to use social media effectively.

EMM rise

Citrix has also noted the rise of Android with the enterprise as security features catch up with iOS, which is the dominant enterprise mobile platform and accounts for 64 percent of all managed devices.  This figure rises to 71 percent in the financial industry but Android controls 39 percent of the healthcare market.

The company says this suggests firms should adopt a platform agnostic enterprise mobility management (EMM) so all operating systems are covered – especially as BYOD becomes more prevalent.

A recent study by Cisco claimed that 4G adoption and the development of the IoT would boost worldwide mobile traffic to 292 Exabytes by 2019.

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