Today’s smartphones—multifunction mobile phones that run some type of mobile OS—are crammed with capabilities that are making them must-have business devices. Research firm In-Stat predicts that smartphone adoption rates will grow more than 30 percent over the next five years, with that growth largely occurring at the expense of traditional mobile phones. That dramatic growth has been largely driven from the top downwards at many organizations, with senior executives, sales staff, and field employees among the first employees to embrace smartphones. Moreover, the increasing power and capability of smartphones is gradually replacing tasks that we all used to use other devices for. In-Stat predicts that the Smartphone market is likely to exceed the Laptop market in about 5 years.

Although that dramatic growth means that more employees will have access to smartphones, it also adds another item to IT’s already overcrowded tech support docket. Smartphones present some unique challenges for IT administrators. Smartphones are more powerful than ever before, but all that capability also opens the door to a host of new security issues. Depending on your environment, you might need to protect smartphones from viruses and malware or employ encryption to ensure that sensitive corporate data isn’t stolen when phones are lost or misplaced. As mobile devices begin to make more inroads into the enterprise, mobile security is rapidly becoming a top concern for IT pros. It isn’t enough to provide endpoint security for mobile devices that access your network, or keep a handle on mobile device deployment and management. Equally important is establishing sound corporate IT policies that govern how those mobile devices are deployed and managed.