The love for the mobile technology today by many people may at times to them act as the solution to almost every problem that arises in their lives. Similarly, it may also not be very easy to put off the mobile technology as that aspect that dictates the fate of the love of the mobile phones by the many users recently. Given by the going trend of the love of the technology, it is indeed worthy to note that mobile phones are the early forms of personal computers to be in use today.
According to the information collected from the leaders of top organizations that primarily deal in information technology, the general perception they present is that there is a change in attitude towards the use of the mobile devices. Though the view of the instance as an oddity that warrants keeping at a distance, the perception that comes out from these personalities is that mobile technology forms a platform for enterprises of existing functions. Also, it combines those that are in due course for invention.
Objectives
The primary objectives of the research will be as stated below;
- To find out the various types of mobile operating systems in the use of mobile phone technology.
- To find out the support that the management gives to the various mobile devices
- To find out how visualization has enhanced security in the mobile delivery
Research questions
Following the research objectives defined above, the research study will take place under the guidance of the below research questions;
- What are the various mobile operating systems present in the mobile phone technology?
- What support does the management has on the various mobile devices?
- How has visualization enhanced security in the mobile technology?
Mobile Operating Systems
Mobile operating systems are the software that serves the responsibility of ensuring the running of other application programs that enhances the functional operation of the mobile devices. Some of these mobile devices are tablets, cellular phones, smart phones and many more. During the last three years there is indeed three last phases in the design of Mobile OS design. The phase ranges from the PC oriented operating system to the embedded type then up to the present smart phone operating system that came in the last ten years. During the design process, architects concerned with the Mobile OS came from the original designed that appeared to be much complex to the present simple status of the mobile devices. Evolution of the various forms of technology in the mobile devices took care of advancements in the systems hardware, software and the internet technology as a whole.
From the advancement in the technology of the mobile devices, they resulted into the various competing mobile systems and their respective solutions with the mobile industry. However, as much as such as advancements came up with solutions, they also faced some completions from other players in the market structures. Some of these competitors were the Google’s Android, Apples’ iOS, Nokia’s Symbian, RIM’s BlackBerry OS, Samsung’s Bada, Microsoft’s Windows Phone, and Hewlett-Packard’s webOS. Also inclusion in the competitive market was the embedded Linux distributions such as Maemo and MeeGo. Consequently, the report covers the below subheadings that relate to the mobile operating systems with respects to such aspects as Mac / Mac OS X / OS X Server / or iOS
Android OS
The OS from Android mobile devices developed from the contributions from the Open Handset Alliance whose team leader was the Google. In the year 2007, Google unveiled the distribution of the Android though majority of them also came from the open source of the Apache License. Also, very large quantity of the software is indeed from the Android devices such as Play Store and Google. The Search, Google Play Services, Google Music and many others operate under the license that originated from the act of 2011. Presently, Android enjoys the highest number of installed base compared to any mobile OS as from the year 2013. At the same time, the devices from the Android have more market compared Windows is and Mac OS altogether. By July 2013, the Google’s Play store enjoyed over one million publications of the installed applications and also over fifty billion applications downloaded from it. Similarly, from the survey conducted between April and May 2013, there were indeed over 71 percent of mobile developers participating in the line of Androids.
iOS
IOS or formerly the iPhone OS refers to the mobile operating system that came from Apple Inc. though its distribution occurs through the Apple hardware. iOS’ operating system is what powers the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Apple TV. Despite iOS being a closed source and also a proprietary, its structure is more like an open source Darwin core OS. On the other hand, iOS initially promoted the new styles that entailed the user interactions especially on small screens. However, such interactions may come with limitations on input devices that may lead to their manipulation directly. Elsewhere elements of touch aspects of gesture such as swipe, tap, tap and hold and pinch also find their application in the control of the screen and their respective interface components and their capability to carry out interface operations. On the same note, elements such as the accelerometers also provide the support for physical aspects of gestures such as the shaking and the rotation of the orientation of the device at large.
Primarily, iOS is a derivative of Mac OS X where it shares most similarities and basics with that of Darwin foundation which is the open source POSIX-compliant UNIX OS. Hence, in this sense, iOS may from part of the variant of UNIX. Similarly, iOS has four layers of abstractions. The layers are the Core Services, Media, Core OS, and Cocoa Touch. Core OS has a kernel type of operating system that has very low level features. For instance, it only supports threads, sockets, IO, DNS, math, memory, and the general secured information. Core Services are the basic system services that have further divisions of frameworks and rely on C and the objective C. Hence it contains applications such as accounts, contacts, networking, data management, calendar events, store purchasing, SQLite, and XML support. Media layer however has higher framework levels that have the responsibility of utilizing the graphics, audio and the technologies involved in the video production.
The Management’s Support of the Mixed Devices
At the time of July 2010, saw the release of the Apple iOS 4. The instance came with the devices such as the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. All but the same came in conjunction with iOS management primarily from the other supported mail server (POP, Microsoft Exchange, Google Mail, IMAP, and Apple MobileMe). For example, in a situation that entailed the hospital environment, it is possible to share the devices though it does not include issuance of the e-mail accounts of the users. On the other hand, iOS 4 also managed to introduce the differential management system that required the applications and data for tagging so as to ensure that each server owns whatever within its provisions. Hence, iOS device had the capability of both corporate and the personal assets. For instance, the corporate server was in a position to reach into the device and cause locking. Also, the corporate device could perform functions such as deletion of assets in provision while leaving other assets untouched at the same time. Similarly, BlackBerry OS 6 that came into being in August 2010 shares the same approach to that of the Research In Motion’s most invented smartphones. Added to this viewpoint, the management of the MobileIron believes that the Google’s operating system that constitutes the Android will soon have the same abilities in few years to come.
Sometimes even without the inclusion of the various managements at the asset level, the fact remains that most smartphones' operating systems still apply the use of the concept of sandboxing. Hence, these applications are in a position to control the accessibility of any data that originates from other applications. Similarly, the management tools also have a greater advantage in that they can control most of these applications much better than the operating systems can do. For instance, the Google Android serves as a very good example in this case. The instance is because it currently lacks an on-device encryption and at the same time lacks the management API that is not within the support for a limited set of the policies contained in EAS. However, in the context of the individual applications such as the Notes Traveller and TouchDown, all can ensure the encryption of their sandboxes. On top of this, they can also permit for themselves for the management by the IT-controlled servers (Lotus Domino and Microsoft Exchange, respectively).
Presently, the differential management approach from iOS and BlackBerry OS is the primary step towards enhancing the security and compliance. On top of this, the instance looks much more than a laptop or even the home based computers according to their functional ability as at present. However, the incoming of the technologies such as the client virtualization that was in the proposal in the year 2006 today offers the PCs the same category of business or personal use simultaneously. Though, they still receive less priority. Indeed, the advancement in the mobile technology today places the mobile phones in a much more step ahead than the desktops in ensuring security and compliance.
Virtualization for Enhanced Security and Application Delivery
Yes, it is true there are many trends or approaches in the virtualization. However, the mobile vendors have a challenge of ensuring their focus on the virtualization that concerns primarily with the client. Some of these forms of the clients focused virtualization aspects are the VMware, thin clients, and hypervisors. That said, it is this approaches that lead to the separation of the applications and their respective data in a much deeper levels. Hence, it causes the barriers that may appear harder to breach compared with the sandboxing and the source tagging.
Client virtualization for sure is what handles the creation of the runtime environment for applications and their respective resources. For instance, it includes the Adobe AIR, Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, and Oracle Java that have the abilities to run the applications on Windows, Mac OS X, and even Linux. Hence, the users have no obligations to switch from a given environment to another compared to the early desktop virtualization where they used to do it previously. Thus, the users, in this case, can opt to launch an application that may be in a position to run its virtual environment by use of the host operating system's user interface and the shared devices.
Conclusion
The emergence of the mobile device applications by employees and customers indeed has a potentiality in the introduction of the transformation initiatives in the business. However, the cost of admitting the platform heterogeneity and sharing of the ownership of the devices with the employees is the upcoming issue in this case. Despite the fact that the present stable of the mobile operating systems may somehow appear daunting, PwC, however, projects the number of viable platforms that lead to the shrinkage into a more manageable four to six. The only contrasting aspect here is that most companies may opt to shift their focus on three. Consequently, there are those applications that are both client and backend. In this case, it requires the modifications that will enable them take the advantage of the recent mobile capabilities as the way they are without incorporation a lot of programming aspects in it.
