Enterprise Mobility - From 'Outside-In' To 'Inside-Out'

The enterprise is going mobile. You're experiencing it yourself, and you're not alone: according to a forecast published by research firm IDC in February 2010, the number of mobile workers accessing enterprise systems worldwide will top the 1 billion mark this year on the way to 1.2 billion by 2013, or more than a third of the world's workforce. The proportion of mobile workers in the US workforce is predicted to surpass 75 percent, or 119.7 million people, in 2013.

However, not all mobile workers have the same needs. So far, we are mostly seeing the growth in what I'd like to call “outsidein mobility”. In this kind of mobile application, most of the activities which are possible when sitting at the office desk are also accessible from anywhere in the world. The most pervasive example of outside-in mobility is, of course, the “anywhere, anytime” e-mail (let's skip the discussion of whether this is a good thing). There is room for many other “outside-in” applications, including purchasing, inventory management, expense accounts, to name just a few.