Apple’s iOS 7 goes live tomorrow. What will it mean for enterprises?
Well, you couldn’t tell from Apple’s consumer-focused media event last Tuesday where they discussed the new iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s at length. So where can you get the lowdown on all the really great enterprise-level business features that are actually baked into iOS 7? From the folks at Responsive Delivery solution provider Moovweb, of course.
From Moovweb’s land of make-believe comes a creative info-parody entitled, “The iOS 7 Apple Event for the Enterprise (that never happened).” In their rendition, they reimagine Apple’s iOS 7 event as if it took place in a parallel universe where the audience had been filled with CIOs instead of techy reporters. In the info-parody, Apple announced the fingerprint sensor in the new iPhone 5s, BYOD, iBeacons, iWork, Per App VPN, MDM deployments, and Single Sign On.
To see how the info-parody explained these real iOS 7 features and how they affect the enterprise, the following was copied from the info-parody’s transcript:
The fingerprint sensor in the new iPhone 5s: “This might be the single greatest gift any mobile device has ever given the enterprise: Finally, authentication that your busy and harried employees will actually use. Now you can go back to worrying about terrible passwords on their laptops.”
iWork: “We’ve bypassed your procurement department that only buys Office. iWork is now free on your employees’ phones, and now it’s in their browser on the desktop. It won’t be taking over your company, but expect motivated employees to dip their toes in, especially if your existing enterprise tools aren’t cloud-ready.”
Apps and books purchased through the Volume Purchase Program: “These stay with the company and not the employee. So when someone leaves your company, you can reassign that license to another employee.”
BYOD: “BYOD doesn’t have to translate into putting your data at risk. The IT department can now prevent accidental data leakage by controlling which apps on a user’s phone are allowed to open corporate attachments. That financial forecast you e-mailed is no longer a single, dangerous tap away from ending up on Twitter.”
Single Sign On: “We’ve built Single Sign On into iOS 7 so your employees won’t have to re-enter passwords when moving between managed apps.”
Per App VPN: “We’ve also added Per App VPN, so work data securely goes through the company VPN, but your Instagram upload doesn’t. Best of all, for most apps, no code changes are required to support both Per App VPN and Single Sign On.”
MDM deployments: “We’ve also added new options and capabilities that streamline MDM deployments and improved data security for all App Store apps.”
iBeacons: “iBeacons offer precise micro-location targeting, even indoors where GPS doesn’t work, and have an amazing potential in retail, especially when paired with the passive messaging available in iOS Passbook.”
At the end, Apple says to “keep your eye out for novel enterprise uses as adoption matures,” and that they are “really proud of all the enterprise features that are now available” and how “iOS 7 is the best mobile operating system for everyone—both consumers and businesses.”
Moovweb’s info-parody ends by saying that Elvis Costello still would have closed out the event in their parallel world. But he would have played “Veronica” instead.
