Star Trek Out of Darkness and Into Enterprise Mobility

This article originally appeared: What Star Trek Can Teach Us About Enterprise Mobility, Citrix Online

Photo courtesy of: Legoagogo via Flickr

Being on the Starship Enterprise was like being in the workplace of the future. In fact the Enterprise operated with the same challenges that enterprises face today. Everyone had lots of devices, needed access to lots of different apps and desktops from these devices, and the ability to share data and do this with complete security and control. On top of that, everyone wanted the ability to work at any time, from any device and from anywhere. The Enterprise was definitely the workplace of the future.

Let’s take a step back and actually put this into context. On your average Star Trek work day the following occurred:

1. The entire Enterprise crew used communicators (remember those Tricorders), various devices, monitors and screens of all shapes and sizes to access the apps and data required to get their jobs done. In other words, they needed a client that could be installed on all these devices, connect to a centralized backend system, deliver all these different apps and customize it to the form factor they were using.
2. Each crew member had varying levels of access to the ship’s apps and data from their devices. The lower your rank, the lower access you had. In some cases it was necessary to deprecate or block a crew member’s level of access in the event they became compromised by some alien life form. Can’t have a possessed crew member disabling the ships engines.
3. Securing communication from an external source was essential. Only Enterprise crew members had access to apps and data while off the ship. Nothing worse than the Romulans being able to access the ship’s internal data and find out the ship deflector shields were down or that you were out of photon torpedoes.
4. And last but not least, Captain Kirk was always talking to the Romulans face-to-face through a large screen on the ship’s bridge. Face-to-face collaboration in hi-def video was clearly important when developing relations with a foreign race especially in life or death situations.

Yup, you guessed it right. The Enterprise had a mobile workstyles strategy and a very good one. They managed multiple devices, secured their apps and data, and collaborated with people working in multiple locations… the same issues facing today’s organizations. They knew that a complete end-to-end mobile solution that addressed the challenges of working on a starship was required for success.

Learn what the Starship Enterprise knew….an end-to-end enterprise mobility strategy is essential for success.

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PS… for a little extra Star Trek fun, check out Citrix Online’s infographic: Which Star Trek Character are You Most Like?