Mobilephobia: A productivity paralysis among information and security professionals that occurs when presented with the idea of sending corporate data into the wild of mobile devices and apps.

Mobile fears are smart. Mobilephobias, however, can be paralyzing to a corporation’s bottom line.

Addressing Enterprise Mobilephobias

There are existing solutions that can help soothe mobilephobia: iOS, the enterprise behemoth with the majority market share, became that way to cure mobilephobias surrounding security in the early days of the move from laptops to smartphones and tablets. Its standard encryption, ease of use and the iPhone’s sleek form factor dethroned BlackBerry faster than the Stark family in “Game of Thrones.”

Now, with iOS 9, a new mobilephobia is cured. But it’s a phobia that will only grow with time — a subset of mobilephobia best described as severe apprehension.

Productivity and security monsters lurk around every corner in the new mobile approach to getting work done. While the dreaded lost or stolen device is a top concern for 32 percent of businesses small and large, what’s most concerning about mobile are predictions for the future. Recent studies indicated mobilephobias in 2019 will stem from management and filling time sinkholes since over 90 percent of personal devices will be asking for access to corporate networks.

Read the white paper: Curing the Cause of Common Mobilephobia

iOS 9 Battles a Mobilephobia Management App-ocalypse

With a support-ready mobile device management system such as IBM MobileFirst Protect, businesses can start abolishing these common boogeymen of app management at the enterprise level.

Device-Based App Assignment Slays Spreadsheet Management

For years now, IT has sung a solemn lament about the need to maintain separate Apple IDs for users to distribute corporate apps. Everything from spreadsheets to sticky notes have sat as the hallmark standard for housing what is essentially a vast software license list. Recognizing this issue, especially in kiosk environments like retail where the owner of the app is a stand instead of a human, Apple IDs are no longer in business (well, except BYOD, but that’s for another article).

With device-based assignment, an extra step has been removed for provisioning vital stores for users. With mobile app management also in tow, distribution can become even more granular for adding only the right users to that volume app purchase.

Global Volume Purchase Program Eradicates Extra Purchases

This one is a simple upgrade in theory, but it’s a big time saver for global app administrators. Prior to iOS 9, enabling a global app rollout required buying across every geographically divided corporate app store. With a borderless app store, this costly redundancy vanishes faster than you can say VPP.

Managing the Unmanaged in Minutes

As apps mature from consumer-class to enterprise-enabled, moving users from one to the other has been an exercise in pleading rather than efficient IT management. With iOS 9 and mobile app management, less-than-corporate-ready app versions can be easily swapped out in favor of the approved corporate ones.

I hope I quelled a few of your mobilephobias for apps, especially when using iPhones and iPads. For a little more mobilephobia therapy, view our on-demand mobilephobia webinar, which covers even more strategies for mobile sanity.