Managed Mobility Services Still a Work in Progress

Kathryn Weldon

Summary Bullets:

• Current Analysis has completed its analysis of global operators’ managed mobility services  (see Global Managed Mobility Services 2013: Who’s on Top?, December 16, 2013).
• There was steady progress but not transformations in providers’ portfolios.  Work remains for BYOD, mobile apps, mobile security, and virtualization.

Every year, Current Analysis looks at the managed mobility services (MMS) of the U.S. and European-based operators, compares their strategies and services, and ranks them according to their core services, value-added services, availability, customer traction, and the progress they have made in fleshing out their portfolios.  We discovered that service providers have added more third-party solution partners, better defined their professional services, began to articulate BYOD-focused offerings, and improved the way they present and position their MMS portfolios.  However, while last year there appeared to be a mandate to broaden the scope of services by adding more sophisticated mobile application management tools, application development capabilities, and mobile security services, only some operators have made enhancements in these areas.  Operators are also discussing the synergy of MMS with their cloud and UC services, but the actual ‘convergence’ of these separate sets of services is still in the beginning stages.  While BYOD remains a major opportunity (and threat), many operators are still in trials with dual persona vendors and have not yet implemented advanced capabilities such as split billing for personal and business communications and transactions.  Below are a few other recommendations to MMS providers: