Today’s professionals already embrace mobile computing. Yet many of them face a dilemma: they love the flexibility of a tablet, yet they still require the power and performance of a laptop.  That’s one big reason why mobile workers now carry an average of 3.5 devices.

These challenges call for a new approach: convertible devices that combine the best qualities of a tablet and a laptop, all in a single, highly versatile form factor. In this eBook, you will answers to these questions:

• How are different industries embracing convertibles?
• How do you determine whether convertibles are right for your organization?
• What are the key features to consider when selecting a convertible?
• How does the new ThinkPad Helix Ultrabook™ Convertible revolutionize mobile computing?

Download the Mobility Unleashed eBook:  www.lenovo.com/helix

Originally posted by Doug Drinkwater, TabTimes

The increasing number of smartphones and tablets in the workplace will push 25% of enterprises to adopt their own app store by 2017, according to Gartner.

In a new study, the research firm says that enterprises will increasingly turn to these app stores to control the apps their employees are using, especially with the bring-your-own-app (BYOA) trend now deemed to be “as important” as bring-your-own-device (BYOD).

Originally posted by Gartner

A well-executed single sign-on (SSO) strategy reduces password-related support incidents and provides users with improved convenience and more-efficient authentication processes, according to Gartner, Inc. A sound SSO strategy will give users fewer reasons to write down passwords. However, one password providing access to all in-scope systems can lead to compromised access to those systems.

“Organizations implementing SSO, particularly to systems that hold sensitive data, should implement risk-appropriate authentication methods with the SSO system,” said Gregg Kreizman, research vice president at Gartner. “Solutions are not ‘one size fits all,’ and solutions that provide SSO to all target systems may be deemed too expensive. Therefore, a best practice is to identify the tactical and strategic approaches that reduce enough of the problem space over time and within budget.”

Mobile devices can pose further challenges for SSO. “The proliferation of mobile phones and tablets with a variety of operating systems has created the latest and greatest challenges to authentication and SSO,” said Mr. Kreizman. “Web-architected applications can often be supported with existing access management tools, such as Web access management (WAM) and federation, because smartphones and tablets have Web browsers. Native mobile resident applications can create a gap in SSO support, and market offerings to resolve the issues are currently immature, proprietary, or not comprehensive enough to support multiple device and operating system variants.”

Originally posted by Jason Evangelho, Forbes

The first laptop I owned was a ThinkPad T20, and the next one may very likely be the ThinkPad Helix which Lenovo unveiled at CES 2013. In a sea of touch-inspired Windows 8 hardware, it’s the first ultrabook convertible with a form factor that gets everything right.

The first batch of Windows 8 ultrabooks get high marks for their inspired designs, but aren’t quite flexible enough to truly be BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) solutions. Lenovo’s own IdeaPad Yoga came close, but the sensation of feeling the keyboard underneath your fingers when transformed into tablet mode was slightly jarring. Dell‘s XPS 12 solved that problem with its clever rotating hinge design, but I wanted the ability to remove the tablet display entirely from both of those products.

Enter the ThinkPad Helix with its “rip and flip” design.

2012 was a pretty big year, in terms of mobile and enterprise mobility. Look at just a few of the milestones that spring to mind in a quick mental review of the year’s biggest mobile headlines:

In my blog last week about the “Royal Family” of enterprise mobile app imperatives, I pointed out that in my opinion, “context is king.” Let me give you a simple example of where a little context could go a long way.

Recently, I was heading to an appointment and volunteered to look up the directions to make sure the driver was heading the right way. With my trusty iPhone 5, I opened the Maps application and input the address we were heading to, which soon revealed itself on the map. I then had to click on the destination, click on the “directions to here” choice, then choose from a list to select directions from my current location to the destination. What’s missing in this scenario is any concept of the context. I’m moving at high velocity toward the location I just entered, so why so many clicks to get the directions from my current location to be displayed on the screen? Why do I have to be so explicit about what I want when an app could pretty easily discern my intentions and just display the information I wanted?

74 percent of IT Decision Makers say tablet usage leads to an increase in productivity in their organization.

Have you thought about the right tablet that will meet your work needs? View this infographic to see the key features of a work tablet:

 View the hi-res version of the ThinkPad Tablet 2 vs iPad infographic

Mobile application development is a “touchy” thing – both literally and figuratively. I mean it literally, in the sense that users generally let their fingers do the walking across your mobile app’s interface, which has some very interesting implications for your GUI (graphical user interface), and figuratively, in the sense that there are a lot of ways to go very wrong in the mobile development process.

I’ve had some limited experience in trying to design mobile apps, and a great deal of experience in using them. Very few apps that I download – and they must number in the thousands by now—pass the acid test of becoming permanent fixtures of my mobile experience. Most are “one and done” affairs, where I end up regretting the time I spent trying them out in the first place.

So here are four things that make a mobile app really stand out, from my perspective:

An old friend of mine tweeted that in the recent presidential elections, the biggest winner was Big Data. The implication is that the race for president – and probably many other lesser races, as well – went to the candidate that used technology most effectively. As ever, money was a huge issue, but perhaps for the first time on a national scale in the United States, tech trumped it.

In my opinion, Big Data wasn’t the only winning technology. Mobility was also very evident in the race. Both presidential candidates released mobile apps for supporters to track them in the polls, and each attempted to harness mobility to allow users to lend a hand to their respective campaigns. It was probably not a coincidence that, according to Pew Research results, traditionally disenfranchised youth and minorities – the voting blocks that came out most strongly in support of the incumbent — are more likely to have a smartphone, and to know how to use it.

A friend of mine was responsible for creating the BYOD pilot program for a Fortune 10, $50B healthcare company. In the process he learned several important and surprising lessons, which he has kindly passed along in blog form.

One lesson he learned is that the biggest cost in developing a large corporate BYOD policy rollout may not be directly related to technology or devices at all. In many cases, it’s the tab for lawyers and HR staffers to review proposed policies, and to develop the lengthy contracts employees ultimately need to sign to use their personal devices on the corporate network.