IT must learn how to manage the new freedoms handed to their workers since the advent of the smartphone. Can they do so without stepping on any toes?

So, which tablet did you receive over the holiday season? Was it the Kindle Fire, the Motorola Xoom, or the iPad?

Did you know that around 45% of the mobile workforce has a job that is compatible with a certain amount of mobile commuting? Wow!

The enhanced access to information provided by greater use of smartphones and tablets among employees has created inherent data security risks.

Just five years ago, probably even two, it was more than likely that the mobile phone you had for work was a BlackBerry smartphone from Research In Motion.

Security practitioners like me shy away from absolutes. That being said, I do not have a problem drawing some comparisons across the leading mobile device platforms, specifically Symbian, BlackBerry, iOS, Windows Mobile 7 and Android.

I had the privilege last week of hosting a webinar with Andrew Borg from Aberdeen Research. In the webinar, Andrew presented findings published in their recently released research report Enterprise Mobility Management 2011: Mobility Becomes Core IT. You can view the webinar here or download the full Aberdeen research report here. As Andrew and I prepared for the webinar early last week we had some animated conversations regarding a few of the more surprising findings from the webinar. I thought I would share one here.

Today, Research In Motion’s (RIM) long awaited tablet hits the market.  The BlackBerry PlayBook will serve as the latest addition to the crowded tablet marketplace.  The PlayBook has the hardware specs to play with the big competition in the tablet world (iPad 2 and Xoom).  Sporting comparable processor, screen resolution and battery life, users will find the new tablet meets  the current device hardware  demands.  On the software front, RIM has chosen to launch its newest Operating System (QNX) with the PlayBook.  With Flash support, a capable OS, and solid hardware specs, the PlayBook seems like a winner at first glance.  The IT side of the house may need to carefully look at how the PlayBook fits into the overall mobile device management strategy since it is not currently being managed by existing BES servers.

Mobility has become a top priority for IT and business leaders among organizations of all sizes, driven by the increased pressure to improve productivity across a broadening mobile workforce, the desire to become more operationally efficient, and the need to support the proliferation of smartphones and tablets in the workplace.

The unveiling of the PlayBook from Research in Motion during the BlackBerry Developer conference in San Francisco last week may have some unintended consequences for the Mobile Device Management Community. The announcement will once again shine the light on the fact that RIM has set a very high bar with respect to how enterprise Smartphones are secured and managed. The folks at RIM offer the enterprise a compelling mix of functionality, ease of use and security on their ubiquitous, proprietary system. Contrast that to Apple, Android and even Microsoft that require an army of developers and consultants to bolt together a limited set of capabilities that can only hope to meet the basic requirements and may never reach the flexibility and comprehensiveness of the maligned BES server.