create a service organization for enterprise mobility—to make the whole story more real.”
Boston-based bakery chain Au Bon Pain, for example, needed help getting the real profit-and-loss figures for each store into the hands of its traveling area directors. The company had developed its own network-accessible daily report application, but area directors frequently couldn’t get at the latest data because, well—if you’ve ever been to one of the company’s cafes, you know that there just isn’t a spot in the typical Au Bon Pain kitchen big enough to set down a laptop, let alone an Internet connection to plug it into.
Enterprise Mobile worked with the company to create a Windows Mobile version of the report application, select the right mobile phone to run the application, and teach area directors how to use the devices. Enterprise Mobile “not only provided the technical expertise we required, but removed any fear and uncertainty our employees may have had about going mobile,” Ed Mockler, the chain’s senior vice president for information technology, told Enterprise Mobile for its published case study of the Au Bon Pain deployment. Now area directors “can get out earlier in the morning and visit more cafes, even those they weren’t planning on visiting,” Mockler said.
Enterprise Mobile has 65 employees to service its 30-plus customers, mostly Fortune 500 companies. These workers are spread across the Watertown headquarters; a Bellevue, WA, office that liaises with Microsoft; and a Dallas “factory” where workers ready mobile devices for deployment to customer sites. Microsoft has also named Enterprise Mobile as the lead strategic partner available to help its own customers get Mobile Device Manager running on their corporate networks.
I contacted Microsoft to ask how Enterprise Mobile fits into its overall vision for Windows Mobile. Scott Rockfeld, group product manager with the company’s Mobile Communications Business, replied that lRosenthal’s company “helps businesses tap into the enormous potential the Windows Mobile platform delivers….By acting as a single contact for device procurement, custom provisioning, lifecycle maintenance and helpdesk support, Enterprise Mobile extends Microsoft’s commitment to the success of its customers and its strong partner network.”
Enterprise Mobile is privately funded and held; its sole outside investor is—you guessed it—Microsoft, which owns a minority stake, according to Rosenthal.
Before I left Enterprise Mobile—which is located inside one of the converted munitions-factory buildings at the Watertown Arsenal—I asked Rosenthal for his quick rundown of today’s mobile-device market. Unsurprisingly, he’s of the opinion that Windows Mobile devices are the only smart option for businesses looking to help their workers be truly mobile. RIM’s Blackberry, he says, is “interesting, and has a stronger business following…But lately they seem to be trying to make it into a general-purpose consumer device. They got rid of the thumb wheel, which was the best thing about it. They’re trying to make it look sexier—but at the end of the day, they’ve made it less useful.”
Google’s open-source Android phone operating system should also be “interesting,” Rosenthal says, “but if it’s all about advertising-supported services, that’s not compatible with enterprise functions.” And the Apple iPhone? “For one thing, it’s just not a very good phone,” says Rosenthal. “And it’s far from being enterprise-ready. It doesn’t do enterprise e-mail. There is no security. Plenty of our customers think it’s cool—but none of them would ever think about adopting it.”
“For our purposes,” Rosenthal concludes, “Windows Mobile is the only player.” And for Ballmer’s purposes, apparently, Rosenthal was the only player. The next 12 months—as Mobile Device Manager is rolled out, more manufacturers and carriers come out with phones that are compatible with the system, and more companies get a chance to evaluate the technology—may show whether Ballmer made the right call.
