With more and more enterprises moving mobility to the front burner this quarter, I took some time to interview Bill Carovano, Sr. Director of Product Management for Citrix. To hear his first hand experiences, thoughts and expertise on the mobile enterprise.
Bill, like some at Citrix, joined the team through acquisition. His background was with Innovex Group, that was acquired in 2000 to assist in growing the Citrix Consulting Services
External consumer-facing apps will be hotter, which will require IT to act and provide “sanctioned” alternatives to many services /apps to those that users get on their own.
2) What is the biggest issue in enterprise mobility?
Being part of a vendor trying to help our customers to be more successful, I worry about the old saying that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Consumerization is driving Enterprise IT to do more to enable mobility for workers. Not just consumerization of devices, but also apps like Dropbox and iCloud. I worry that the legitimate desires of IT to provide more secure, sanctioned alternatives will end up driving users right back to the consumer tools. One example: doing two-factor auth (a legitimate IT requirement) in a way that hurts usability so much that people go right back to the even more insecure tools like Dropbox.
3) I’d love to get feedback on Mobile Enterprise Adoption Forumla, before I write my “thesis” on it. What are your thoughts on it?
It’s an interesting model. The real trick, of course, is enabling security while not damaging the User Experience. Dropbox is easy to use but it’s seen as completely insecure by IT. IT wants to add security features such as 2-factor auth which can hurt the user experience. With ShareFile, we always look for ways to enable security without hurting user experience. The built-in editor and annotation feature is a good example. We empower users with the tools they need, and deliver it in a way that works for IT’s security needs as well.
We would like to thank both Bill and Citrix for this interview and their attention to mobile enterprise.
– Daniel DiMassa.
