I’ve been meeting with several different types of managed services companies around the country.  The typical MS company is providing network, PC and email administration and 24/7 support for small crashes or major disaster recovery episodes.  All of them are serving small-to-medium businesses who do not have a robust IT department, or maybe not one at all.  The MS company has become a mission critical partner in today’s business operations.  No PCs, no Internet access, no email usually equals no revenue.

Mobile workers are now introducing a new level of challenges as their smartphones, rugged devices, cell phones and wireless laptops make them a part of the mission critical profile in business operations.  Yet, while talking through the technical capabilities, value proposition, understanding of the fragmentation of the mobile solution ecosystem and what seems like an obvious high margin value-add service for the the MS MS company, I don’t get the sense that the MS industry is fully prepared to extend its services to the mobile worker.