SAP CIO Offers Mobility Insights, Top 10 iPad Deployment Tips

December 09, 2011 | SAP News | Clare Plaisance | 0 Comment

Promotional Picture for SAPChat with Oliver Bussmann

SAP’s CIO, Oliver Bussmann thinks of social media as an essential tool for communicating with stakeholders, both internal and external, rather than as a distraction. He recently shared this observation in SAPChat, an open forum on Twitter for anyone interested to ask Bussmann questions about SAP. Bussmann answered some questions about SAP HANA and the software and solutions that SAP is running internally, but the questions asked of Bussman centered around mobility.

SAP’s Internal Mobility Deployment

One topic that came up several times was the variety of devices used in enterprise mobility deployments. SAP has an open a bring your own device policy for mobile devices. Bussmann revealed that this does not only apply to mobile phones and tablets, but also MacBooks. SAP’s internal mobile device support may even one day extend to the Kindle Fire. Bussmann has not yet tested the Kindle Fire, but plans to do so.

Although SAP is open toward different devices, the organization has a very large iPad deployment, one of the largest in the world. Bussmann noted that SAP has deployed 11,000 iPads among 50,000 users.

During the SAPChat, Bussmann answered some questions about how SAP manages all of its mobile devices. SAP uses Sybase Afaria to manage its 11,000 iPads as well as 5,000 iPhones. When asked about the type of authentication that SAP uses for its internal mobile solutions, Bussmann shared that SAP implemented single-sign-on based on X509.

What’s ahead for SAP in mobility? Bussmann pointed out that according to SAP Co-CEO Jim Hagemann Snabe, SAP is always on the lookout for an acquisition as part of its mobile strategy.

Top 10 Tips for Enterprise iPad Deployment

Advising that CIOs must deploy iPads now, before individual lines of business acquire their own iPad deployment solutions from third parties, Bussmann shared his top 10 tips for deploying iPads in an enterprise.

Build a device agnostic strategy.
Mobile Device Management software like Sybase Afaria is a must have.
Early involvement of the IT Security and Data Privacy experts is mandatory in order not to delay any deployment.
Web 2.0/wiki technology and mobile champions in larger locations will minimize the impact on first level support.
Automate the deployment with a mobile device management tool so that IT does not need to touch the Device.
Look at deployment end-to-end; include integration at the start of the deployment with an order management system.
International roaming is the biggest cost driver.
Use Mobile Device Management tool to standardize international data roaming.
Bring your own device is a must have for enterprises.
The IT department has to be in the driver’s seat.

Bussmann promised that there will be more SAPChats on Twitter.

See the full transcript of the SAPChat here.