Industry leaders give developers and IT managers their best advice on questions surrounding network access by mobile devices.

Written by Chris Smith

Mobile devices and applications seem to be sweeping the world and are presenting special challenges—and rewards—for developers. As users come to expect access to corporate networks and applications from their mobile devices, developers will be tasked with weighing in on how their companies should approach this challenge.

Industry leaders weigh in on questions surrounding deployment of mobile devices and applications within the enterprise.

Written by Chris Smith

The world is going mobile, and chances are that everyone reading this article has a smartphone, and probably has—or is planning to get—a tablet computer, be it an iPad, Android, Windows 7, or BlackBerry device.

The implications for enterprise computing are, if not enormous, at least extremely significant. No IT manager or chief technology officer today can claim to be completely confident in his or her decisions regarding mobile enterprise computing because the technology is changing so fast.

Take advantage of tablet-based devices in a System i world.

Written by Mike Faust

According to a USA Today article from December of 2010, 21 million tablet PCs were sold in 2010. Most of those sales were as a result of Apple's introduction of the iPad. Tablet devices like the Apple iPad are often thought of as high-tech "toys" used for simple tasks like playing games, sending email, Web surfing, or maybe watching a movie or listening to music. But the real power of these devices that's often overlooked is the potential of using them as business tools. Specifically, I believe these devices are well-suited for use in the System i world. This article explores a few of the options for using tablets with the System i.

Using SuperPutty as a window manager for the PuTTY SSH client allows for SSH, Telnet, and SCP support on Windows.

Written by Max Hetrick

The PuTTY client has been providing terminal emulation for SSH and Telnet support for a little over 10 years now. PuTTY provides Windows a program to connect to the command line of Linux and UNIX machines. With a few other programs like PSCP, Pageant, and PuTTYgen, you can also gain file copy and SSH key support very easily.

So you really want to be able to phone it in to your IBM i? This article explains the how and how much of mobile IBM i development.

Written by Joe Pluta

We're in the throes of a revolution, one that I think took many of us by surprise. Yes, people have been using cell phones for a long time, and quite a few have figured out how to use first-generation smart devices such as BlackBerries as true business appliances. But the meteoric rise of the iPhone has fundamentally transformed the Web user interface landscape, making it almost a necessity for companies with a Web presence to have "an app for that." Meanwhile, the perfect storm of the Android operating system and the cost-effectiveness of large-form touchscreen hardware have significantly complicated the decision-making process. Just a few years ago, a thin-client Web application was all that was needed; now you have to decide whether you want to go rich or go native. And if you're going native, exactly which native are you going?

How will the proliferation of wireless devices impact enterprise network infrastructures?

Written by Chris Smith

With the large number of mobile devices, including smart phones and wireless tablet computers, about to hit the market this spring and the move toward accessing enterprise applications from mobile devices accelerating, we wondered how IT departments were planning to handle the inevitable requests from users to access the corporate network. Many of the companies we contacted were not prepared to answer the questions below. However, we found two IBM Business Partners, Key Information Systems of Woodland Hills, California, and East Coast Computer, of Pompano Beach, Florida, that knew exactly what we were talking about and were willing to go on the record with their opinions. Their comments are printed below. We would like to thank Will Rodgers, Network Practice Manager, Key Information Systems, and Zane Gramenidis, President, East Coast Computer, Inc. for the time they took responding to our questions.

The company offers everything from provisioning to data wipe, but the question remains: How well will it work on legacy systems?

Written by Chris Smith

The promise of deploying native applications to mobile devices recently has inspired a number of developers to turn their attention to this challenge. With the small size of mobile device displays, screen scraping is a less than optimum solution. One young company started by a former IBMer believes it has a simple and highly effective solution to address this clearly growing need. Bitzer Mobile, Inc. of Milpitas, California, announced the release last month of a virtualization solution that allows enterprise applications to run on leading mobile devices including iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android smartphones and is working on versions for Windows Phone 7 and iPad due in a month. Apart from a straightforward setup, the beauty of the solution is that users can employ the company's—or their own—mobile devices, and it will work equally as well—and will be equally secure.

The last sentence on page 196 of the 802.11 spec creates a furor.

Written by Thomas M. Stockwell

Wi-Fi has a long history of security vulnerabilities and resulting fixes. WEP, TKIP, WPA, and the current standard of WPA2 have brought the technology closer to being secure. Indeed, the pervasiveness of Wi-Fi has changed everything—from how we design computer networks, to where we enjoy our coffee breaks, to how we buy and read our books. Travel in any foreign land, and the first question you'll find yourself asking the natives is "Where is the nearest Wi-Fi?"