By Jo Best, 9 February 2007 16:50
COMMENT
10. Antivirus
Antivirus is a concern that's making its way from the desktop to the mobile device. But charges of over-hyping have been levelled and they have not been far wide of the mark to date - most mobile viruses require users to explicitly accept or download files to infect their phones. However, analyst house Gartner predicts viruses will move from chimera to genuine worry for CIOs as smart phone penetration begins to reach levels that will interest malware writers and hackers.
While antivirus on phones may yet be destined to remain a small area for some time - Juniper Research reckons just eight per cent of mobile phones will have antivirus installed by 2011 - as with many mobile services, the business market is likely to be the early adopter.
To date, mobile viruses have been largely toothless and required user action to execute the virus but analyst house Gartner predicts 2007 will see that situation change.
Ten mobile trends
1. FMC
2. Salesforce automation
3. VoIP
4. Payments
5. 3.5G - HSDPA
6. Location-based services
7. TV
8. Device management
9. M2M
10. Antivirus
Despite 'boy who cried wolf' fears over mobile viruses, CIOs should still direct their attention towards mobile viruses and their prevention. Gartner VP Nick Jones told silicon.com: "I wouldn't be surprised if we had a serious virus by the end of the year. CIOs have to ramp [antivirus] up their priority list."
For CIOs seriously considering antivirus, all mobile devices used within the company must be controlled by the company - foreign bodies such as iPods and personal phones shouldn't be connected to enterprise systems.
Jones told silicon.com: "Once you go down the road of anything like antivirus you probably need to integrate it with a wider system management strategy because youll need to push updates to devices, manage device configurations and so on. So antivirus is just one part of an integrated device management strategy. Ideally youll try to get some leverage by using the same vendors for mobile PC and mobile phone management, and increasingly this will be an option."
RATING: 3/5 - another one you should definitely be looking at.Jo Best will be at the 3GSM show in Barcelona from 11 to 15 February covering these and other topics.
Comments
There are 2 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Jo's analysis of ViOP over mobiles seems already out of date. There's an exhibitor at the 3GSM Congress called barablu who seemed to be creating quite a stir with their development of this very facility. I'd be interested to know what she thought.
2. Sri Harsha Paturi
Mobile TV can be realized in two formats. One is by incorporating hardware technology change. Second, by having codec application software up with the mobile service providers. Hardware tweaking is basically is a costly and time taking option. As Apalya Technologies, we can see application software up and working with 2.5/EDGE service providers in India.
Hope to see a great technological impact in coming days.
Cheers!!!
Sri Harsha Paturi