New Microsoft Dynamics CRM tablet, phone apps push mobile-first, cloud-first . . . and security-first?

A reimagined phone app and an tablet app with enhanced security were among the new offerings on display at a Microsoft Dynamics CRM session at Microsoft Convergence 2015 in Atlanta this week. The session was certainly in keeping with CEO Satya Nadella's mandate to push Microsoft toward the "mobile-first, cloud-first" world.

And perhaps, if room can be made for one more "first," another might be added to that list, too: "Security-first."

"When we think about mobile security, most people think about ‘MDM,' which stands for mobile device management," said Girish Raja, Microsoft senior product marketing manager. "We want to work on this concept of mobile application management (MAM)."

Enterprise mobile policies, Raja explained, are currently often premised around MDM, in which companies own and operate the entire device and all of its data. But MDM is an increasingly outdated strategy, he said, as estimates are that more than 60 per cent of employees at present bring their own mobile devices to work. And that number, of course, is only growing. Yet, a company that holds to MDM might, as a matter of policy, completely wipe a device and all its data once an employee leaves the company or moves to a different division within the company.

And losing one's address book, photos and other personal files can be devastating - which Raja said happened to a former co-worker of his, whose newly flushed address book meant that text messages he received all appeared without a name to them. "His standard reply was ‘...By the way who are you?'" Raja said. "It turns out the first person who texted him was his dad. He got pretty offended that his son didn't know his own father's number."