Enterprise mobility used in ruggedized mobile device, including smartphones and tablets are becoming the secure platform of choice for military, public safety, and commercial industrial workforces.  While JTRS mobile handsets have evolved over time, secure mobile apps and enterprise data is becoming an absolute necessity.  When it comes to tablets, they are still in the infancy stage.

The security of the data  mobile apps, user experience, display, and RF fingerprinting have a good 2-3 years more development before they can be used even on a trial basis, especially by the Department of Defense.  General Dynamics, for instance, has partnered with several companies in this initiative, as well as a number of secure mobile apps vendors are developing as fast as they can, including CoolFire Solutions, Good Technology, Motorola Mobility, and others.

The DOD has dozens of secure terrestrial- and satellite-based mobile computing platforms, but commercial alternatives are definitely more versatile in terms of real-world compatibility and application support, by far much cheaper, and faster to deploy.

Three years ago it was easier to hire qualified engineers to design and develop secure mobile applications and the packaging design of ruggedized secure handsets.  But with more complex enterprise needs, the education bubble (we don’t produce American born engineers -  by and large required for DoD security clearance) and the commercial growth of Android and iOS now used in tablets taking so many of those remaining engineers, it has become a tough road for defense contractors and their subcontractors.

Within our mobile devices, enterprise mobility, and aerospace/defense retained executive search practices, we’ve had to enlarge our staff just to meet the demands of clients’ key staffing needs. From mobile apps development to UX, UI, and product management, identifying and recruiting qualified talent that can gain security clearances has simply become an overwhelming task for Human Resources and corporate internal recruiters.    And since NextGen only performs retained search, we are often called upon when all other recruiting attempts and contingency forms have failed to produce.

Many companies and their vendors – from defense to public safety are still refining requirements and developing the strategy for secure smartphones and tablets.  This is due to so many enterprise applications being very complex and the UI design even trickier.  Several things must be considered when approaching the strategy of enterprise mobility and ruggedized secure mobile devices including:

• Form factor design; feature, customization, configuration
• Designing packaging, Out Of Box Experience (OOBE), usability test and OOBE test of the packaging.
• User Setup, Installation – user setup procedure design; user setup procedure test; developing user documentations including quick start guide and users guide
• Reverse Logistics – return and RMI process; return swap pool size analysis
• Customer Support – developing support model and process; support staff training material development
• UI Design, Usability testing – UI and skin concept design; UI usability evaluation and testing throughout the design process
• Device Test, Certification – functional test, field test, GCF compliance test, usability test, and battery life

Combine that with environmental concerns, dealing with legacy application not designed for touch screens, and the wireless network speed required for large amounts of secure data, and it is a challenge.  The next 3 to 5 years will be very challenging in user interface design. The interfaces must have greater efficiency, be more secure from foreign government hacking, and include reduced redundancy.