Secure Line

Each week you inquire high-profile technology decision-makers 3 questions.

This week it's Scott Petty, executive of business products and services for mobile phone hulk Vodafone.

Vodafone is formed in Newbury in the UK, and employs 85,000 people portion 341m customers. In the final financial year the firm had a turnover of 44.5bn, and done a pre-tax distinction of 8.7bn.

What's your greatest technology complaint correct now?

The greatest dare is the expansion of the engorgement of mobile devices, and how to succeed them.

There used to be a time when the IT subdepartment could foreordain to users that gadgets they used. That's altered right away with all the new smartphones, tablets and mobile devices.

But how do you secure them and control them? A business can't means to remove the calm on these devices.

So the attention has to erect the correct collection to succeed them.

Tablet computers, for example, are increasingly being used by comparison executives. They store all the financial data on their iPad or Android device, and bring that around with them.

These gadgets might not be encrypted. They might not have the apt safety policies, and they might obtain lost.

The attraction of data hold by comparison management team is really high, and creation them as secure as on the Personal Computer is a challenge.

Smartphones have an notably high rate of loss - they are left at the back in taxis and on trains.

We have a number of customers who left their gadgets on aeroplanes.

Most mobile working systems already offer a few simple turn of encryption.

So the complaint is not the ability of security, but how to configure it right, notably when the users bring their own technology in to the workplace.

For our own business you have deployed a device management answer that puts an access ethics on all devices, giving us the ability to clean all data remotely and make sure place awareness.

The key thing for organisations is to obtain this in to place. They can't leave it to the finish user to do their self-configuration.

It is critical to have these technical solutions, but you moreover have to consider the practice for users as well.

Most importantly, any answer has to be as unimportant as possible.

What's the next large tech thing in your industry?

I think the one after another mobilisation of the internet is basically going to change the way the internet is being used.

We once insincere the Personal Computer shade would be the expenditure device, but in many markets the mobile internet will shortly pull ahead of prearranged internet.

Then there is machine-to-machine communication that will link up new gadgets and expostulate the mobile internet.

A great e.g. is Unilever, who hide [mobile phone] SIM cards in icecream machines, to inform them when the appurtenance needs restocking or maintenance. That is delivering outrageous savings.

Then their selling subdepartment came up with a great amicable media process to marketplace it. If you create a large sufficient smile, you obtain an ice thickk cream for giveaway - and the appurtenance uploads an picture of you laughing [with permission] to Facebook.

In both the consumer and business context, user selection will be pushing future developments and there will be an stepping up number of form factors.

Where joining plays a role, it's about the formation of what you do on all these devices. The applications will converge, and calm will be common opposite not similar form factors, by the cloud. But the number of form factors of gadgets will increase.

What's the greatest technology inapplicable designation you've ever done - possibly at work or in your own life?

The more time you outlay in the tech industry, the more you realize that things do not change as rapidly as you expect.

For e.g. when PDAs became available, I was an Apple Newton fan, then a Win CE fan, but these gadgets lacked the connectivity they needed. I was assured you would all be using PDAs, not personal computers.

I invested in a stage similar to the Newton that didn't take off since the technology was as well early ... it usually took off once you got chic phones.