Independent market analyst Datamonitor has released a new report headlining security concerns as the largest barrier to enterprise mobility deployments.

The report, "Enterprise Mobility: Trend Analysis to 2012," highlights the problems enterprise IT managers face when dealing with advanced consumer mobile devices, that their employees try to integrate with business-critical enterprise applications.

Datamonitor technology analyst Daniel Okubo said, "Enterprises are fighting a losing battle against employees when it comes to mobile devices... they should consider supporting a limited selection of devices rather than banning them outright."

Okubu added that IT managers could improve employee satisfaction by, " Allowing a range of the most popular devices and encouraging more of their employees to embrace mobile devices and improve their productivity when away from the office."

A survey conducted by Datamonitor in March 2007 to establish issues that are currently preventing enterprises from investing in mobility solutions, polled 467 chief information officers and IT decision makers who rated security as biggest barrier to their firms deploying mobile systems.

The biggest security problem needing to be addressed is that which occurs when employees lose or have their mobile devices stolen, devices that may have sensitive company data on them.

Datamonitor pointed out that mobile operators have started offering hosted device management systems and Okubu advised IT managers to, "Ensure they have these capabilities either through traditional security vendors such as Sybase. For smaller enterprises, perhaps a hosted solution from a carrier is more efficient."

Okubu concluded that, "The popularity of mobile devices in the consumer markets is forcing enterprises to consider how best to manage these devices in the workplace and they need to ensure they have clear policies in place to manage employee expectations.”

Datamonitor is predicting enterprise expenditure on mobile devices to almost triple from today's $6bn to an estimated $17bn by 2012.