Every year, CTIA the wireless association gathers the best and brightest minds in the mobile space to directly engage mobile app developers, corporate and government CIOs, CTOs and IT staff, and vendors to discuss what’s happening in the fast growing mobile space. This year’s conference in San Jose’s Convention Center starting yesterday and continuing until Friday features hot issues like privacy, security, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) issues, and mobile app and platform development.
Steve Largent, CTIA President and CEO, kicked off the MobileCON show on Wednesday morning, declaring that mobile communications has been "pervasive and transformative" for Americans. He noted a significant milestone for the wireless industry: It’s been thirty years since the first commercial cellular phone call occurred on October 13, 1983 in Soldier Field in Chicago.
Largent acknowledged that one of the most challenging issues facing the industry is cybersecurity. He issued a call to action to policymakers that was two fold: (1) to give the ability to share information about cyberthreats and effective countermeasures among industry players and between industry and government; and (2) that liability protection is addressed in any cybersecurity legislation.
Dan Mead, President and CEO of Verizon Wireless and CTIA Chairman, moderated a panel on mobile commerce. Michael Abbott, CEO of Isus, announced a Mobile Wallet, which is a free app that allows users to pay for things by a contactless swipe of their mobile phones. A Mobile Wallet user may add offers and a participating credit card from American Express or Chase, and load on loyalty cards from local participating merchants. Abbott said the credit cards have the same level of fraud and lost/stolen safeguards that a customer has now. The Mobile Wallet is secured with a PIN. If the phone is lost or stolen, a call to your mobile carrier or a visit to the Isus website freezes the Mobile Wallet. The Isus Mobile Wallet is live in Austin and Salt Lake City and rolling out nationwide by year’s end.
James White, CEO of Jamba Juice, described how Jamba Juice decided to embrace mobile payment and other social media and mobile commerce techniques to engage its customers in a contemporary way. Jamba introduced a tap and pay payment method and will give away a million free smoothies to the first customers who choose to pay that way.
When asked if mobile commerce will replace credit cards, it was observed by Dan Schulman, Group President of Enterprise Growth of American Express, that it took forty years to move the public from using cash and check to credit cards. He said the credit card industry is a $4 trillion industry. However, given how pervasive the mobile phone industry has become in thirty years, AmEx realizes mobile commerce is the future.
"We have to be on top of security," Schulman assured the audience. "It is our responsibility."
Alan Dabbiere, Chairman of Airwatch, runs an enterprise mobile platform. With a billion devices in the world, he said his business was very challenging because of the greatly varying privacy regulations in each country. He said it was a "mobile death by a thousand cuts".
On Thursday, Christy Wyatt, President and CEO of Good Technology, warned about how data is now the "weapon of choice" for corporate espionage. The most popular assets sought are the corporate financial statements, and confidential product and marketing materials. In the old days, companies would wiretap or even send in a fake employee. Now, a bad guy can hack into the corporate network or snoop on a senior executive’s laptop or device to obtain sensitive materials.
Waytt noted one huge headache for CIOs are leaks involves employees copying proprietary information and sending it via email or Dropbox to their personal devices, such as an iPad, a home PC or laptop. If the personal iPad or iPhone is stolen in a public place by a bad guy, she showed how by using open source software the device’s password can be broken through in 23 seconds, exposing all local passwords, Keychain, corporate network password for web based interfaces, and snapshots of any work in progress (unencrypted). She also showed on line video ads by bad guys willing to launch DOS (Denial of Service) attacks on your corporate competitive for as little as $5/hour. She advocated creating a secure connected container for corporate data, which are corporate managed, encrypted and policy driven.
Bask Iver, CIO and SVP of Technology and Business Operations of Juniper, said that mobile apps are here to stay, given the mobile app industry is a $15 billion industry and mobile users love cheap, easy to use mobile apps that enhance their lives. He said that enterprises should consider creating simple, user friendly mobile apps to help get company work done. Right now, he observed that only 1/3 of most enterprises have developed a mobile app, and usually it is a single app.
As examples of how useful mobile apps can be, he mentioned the Chase financial mobile app, which allows a bank customer to click a photo of a check and deposit it in her banking account. Drawing on work done at Juniper, he suggested a company can automate HR processes like travel and expense reimbursement approvals so managers can approve them on mobile devices. He suggested a spread out sales team can greatly benefit from having a complete picture of a customer (open orders, payment history, account contacts, offices, etc.) served up on their mobile devices. He suggested Skype-like one click video collaboration tools for product teams and executives. He suggested the real estate team can benefit from a mobile app that tracks all the offices spaces of a multinational company, and helps assign conference room or office space use.
He urged CIOs and CTOs to think about a business goal and work backwards to find ways to make the work easier with a creative mobile app. He emphasized that one in four apps are abandoned after first use, however, because they are not easy to use, don’t look good, or do not create value for the user.
