Factors that influence IT decisions are needs assessment, feasibility, budgets and resources. Ultimately the motive is the return on investment.

Here are some reasons why smartphones are a smart decision for the government sector:

Mobility: Employee mobility is integral to the workings of many agencies, from land officials to local community organizers, and smartphones support that agenda. For example, federal law enforcement agencies use BlackBerry smartphones for communication and access to mission-critical applications from the field.

Government initiatives: Smartphones speak to several important government initiatives, such as telework, disaster preparedness, environmental concerns and increased use of the Internet.

Productivity: In general, smartphones represent several productivity enhancements: real-time communication, increased collaboration, presence awareness and access to Internet applications that use GPS.

Identity: A government agency can integrate cellular and telecom systems to create a single calling identity and, at the same time, preserve the privacy of smartphone users.

Unified communications: A sophisticated smartphone strategy can be the entry point to a unified communications infrastructure. By integrating telecon and smartphone systems, a government agency can bring together wireless, telecom and management capabilities to support a variety of mobile applications.

Source: An excerpt from the white paper Smartphones: A Savvy Strategy for Government Employees

Breaking news of the Day is that Govt of India has decided to call off the much hyped Ban on RIM’s blackberry smart phones..

India has canceled a ban of BlackBerry services that was scheduled to occur at the end of October.

A press release from India’s Ministry of Home Affairs on Friday confirmed the news, saying that discussions with RIM had led to an interim agreement under which BlackBerry Messenger services could continue. This agreement provides the Indian government with access to the lawful interception of data over the BlackBerry network, according to the ministry. Further, RIM has promised India that it would offer a final solution by January 31, to give the government continued access.

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Many enterprises, businesses, executives and professionals are taking to working on the go and using their mobiles for business purposes. But what really is the current state of enterprise mobility and which are the apps that are being used widely?

According to Forrester research, enterprises are slow in adoption mobile applications other than email, calendar and contacts. Though this is good news for RIM (the makers of BlackBerry – which is great in these areas), fact remains that enterprises haven’t ventured much beyond these applications which may have something to do with limitations of off-the-shelf solutions. BlackBerry OS also remains a platform that is really difficult to program for.

Other widely used mobile apps are – emergency response (24%), sales force automation (21%), customer-facing mobile applications (19%) and field service apps (18%).

Speaking of Enterprise Mobility applications, these seem to be extremely niche. They are developed for very specific features and tasks such as freight shipping, car returns, etc. Though the picture seems a little bleak for everyone except RIM, Forrester says that this is a growth period of enterprise mobility and soon there will be vast changes in this sector.

Improving bandwidth capabilities, delivery models aligning with adoption patterns, enhancing security features and the place of mobile innovation are but some of the factors that are driving this change in the enterprise mobility sector.

The future will definitely see enterprises using apps for almost all their corporate functions.

Everyday we see more and more people taking to smart phones, iPads and what not. We see that there is a sudden rush towards these mobility devices. Demographically speaking, this might be because there is no other choice. Peer pressure plays a far greater role here than we thought.

According to the latest census on technographics by Forrester Research, the technology gap between Generation X (31 to 44) and Generation Y (18 to 30) is ever widening. The survey was conducted among 43,000 respondents in U.S and Canada. Nearly 85% of Gen Y send or receive text messages and 37% access mobile Internet. 27% of this generation uses mobiles to access social networks. The picture for Gen X has some differences, but gives a similar picture.

Here are the stats of the survey :

The key here is that Gen X and Gen Y together make half the population. Once the seniors exit the workforce, enterprises will have to cater to this iPad-weilding generation. Hence it becomes important for corporates to streamline their mobility processes early on, so that they can make the most of their high-tech work force!

Who knows, companies might soon have to provide corporate social networks mimicking Facebook.

Here’s an interesting news surfacing this morning… Blackberry maker RIM is likely to announce a tablet next week, internally named BlackPad. Here’s an extract from the report published on Mashable…

Citing sources familiar with plans, The Wall Street Journal claims the BlackBerry maker could show the world its tablet as early as next week, at a developers’ conference in San Francisco.

The internal name for the tablet is BlackPad; it will have a seven-inch touch screen, one or two cameras, Bluetooth and broadband connections, and it’s scheduled for a launch in the fourth quarter of the year. Interestingly enough, The Wall Street Journal’s sources claim the device will only be able to connect to mobile networks through a BlackBerry.

As far as the OS goes, the same sources claim RIM will use a new platform built by QNX, an OS maker RIM bought earlier this year, instead of BlackBerry OS. Furthermore, BlackBerry is supposed to eventually move the BlackBerry to this new platform, too.

BlackPad’s eatures include:

* 7-inch touchscreen
* one or two cameras
* Bluetooth / Broadband connections
* QNX operating system

Read full report here on Mashable