BMC looks to cash in on mobility
Remote helpdesks, mobile access management systems and augmented reality-based apps for IT professionals and business users are some areas BMC Software is looking at for new growth opportunities and revenue streams, a company executive has revealed.
BMC Software's Asia-Pacific CTO and senior director of its incubator team, Suhas Kelkar, told ZDNet Asia in an interview the current mobility trend is gaining traction among enterprises, and this is driven primarily by end-users instead of IT departments. This, he added, "impacts the way business is run" on a fundamental basis.
Elaborating, he said these changes to business processes bring about opportunities for BMC to capitalize. For example, its Remedy helpdesk system has added mobile capabilities following the software vendor's July acquisition of erstwhile partner Aeroprise, an enterprise mobile application company.
With the enhanced offering, IT administrators will be able to decide which are the priority issues and address those problems first, while on the move, he noted.
As for device management systems having to cope with myriad consumer mobile devices entering the enterprise space, Kelkar said companies need a mindset change and consider how employees' mobile devices are now their desktops, too.
"Companies are lagging behind in terms of managing the different endpoint devices… and there needs to be management software emerging to [help companies cope with this situation]," he pointed out. This also represents another growth opportunity for the company, the executive added.
Asked if desktop virtualization could be the answer to device management, Kelkar said this is not suited for all companies and work cultures. Not all employees would enjoy having to install Windows operating system on top of an Apple laptop, for instance, he explained.
What's important is companies "elevating" themselves and having a top-view perspective on how to remodel their device management policies and processes to ensure their networks are secure and free from obvious vulnerabilities, the CTO urged.
Exploring augmented reality, gamification
Looking further into the future, Kelkar revealed that the company's research and development team is looking into how augmented reality technologies can be incorporated into mobile-based offerings and add value to its existing products.
One example of this is an augmented reality barcode that can be stuck onto individual server arrays, he shared. Thus, people need only use their handsets to take a photo of the barcode to find out how much of the compute resource in that server is used and what applications are running on it, he explained.
Another aspect the R&D team is exploring is gamification. Kelkar said the idea of how such a system can influence user behavior and incentivize workers to improve workflow by rewarding them with points or badges is interesting and could be a good fit for future mobile-based products.