Microsoft’s announcement of a platform for enterprise handhelds, along with ongoing work on wireless standards, confirms that cloud computing is coming to wireless devices. Software developers will be busy as the Microsoft announcement gives businesses the green light to start migrating applications. But governance of the cloud lags far behind the latest innovations and will require an input of policy and management skills down the line. By Helen Beckett.
Enterprise devices
Called Windows Embedded Handheld, the platform is Microsoft’s enterprise version of Windows Mobile and will include more robust management and security. The new application platform will be based on Microsoft Silverlight and Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a video announcement last week.
"These releases will provide proven management and security functionality, while giving customers confidence that investments in handheld enterprise devices and line-of-business applications will be protected over time by an extended support lifecycle", said Ballmer. Microsoft's Windows Embedded team is "focused on extending Windows and the benefits of cloud computing to the world of specialised devices”.
The first version of Windows Embedded Handheld is due to be released in six months' time and will be based on Windows Mobile 6.5. However, the second iteration — scheduled for release in the second half of 2011 — will be based on "Windows 7 technologies, according to Microsoft.
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Open standards to boost wireless
Efforts to make the wireless cloud a bigger and richer data zone focus on achieving this through the use of open standards. Funambol is a mobile open source project designed to allow any wireless device to access, share and synchronise a wide variety of data and rich media with a ‘mobile cloud’.
The project, which started life in 2001 as Sync4j open source project, cites findings to suggest that open source is succeeding in the consumer market. Market research firm NPD claim that Google’s open source Android platform has already eclipsed Apple’s proprietary operating system in the US mobile handset market.
Governance needed
Cloud computing – even without the wireless component - makes IT governance more difficult by introducing an additional layer of complexity which businesses need to understand. Governance of cloud computing is too reactive, technology-centric and piecemeal and must improve dramatically, according to technology analyst Ovum.
It warns that cloud governance is suffering from the same flaws affecting other IT governance areas, and that a new approach is needed as cloud computing cannot thrive without an effective governance framework that promotes and ensures coordination between IT teams.
Laurent Lachal, Ovum senior analyst, said: “Most IT governance efforts are prompted by new regulations or by the need to keep up with uncontrolled service oriented architectures (SOA), software services, virtual machines or public cloud services – whereby governance starts when the public cloud bill is much higher than expected.” Search for developer and governance jobs
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