Last week was an interesting week, with a notable day Thursday for an all day internal training session.  I had to step away from the meetings to take a call with a mobility management vendor who wanted to brief me on some new things they were thinking about in terms of mobile device management (really cool stuff by the way).  It got me thinking though.

Many (most) device management companies will put a tiny application on a device that will run in the background (save the iPhone of course - because you can't multitask on the bloody thing - sorry, had to put a dig in) and provide an IT manager the ability to monitor a single device and/or push out applications or settings to multiple devices in one shot.  That's table stakes at this point.  But what about all the DATA that the IT managers can see?

I'm not talking about data in terms of the files that you may have put on your mobile - whether MP3s or Word files, etc.  I'm talking about all the data that the MDM companies can collect on the status of your phone.  Battery life, reception, (GPS) location, etc.  All this information is continuously being collected - but what's being done with it?  For now, it's used mostly for troubleshooting purposes.  But what if it were used for something else?

I'm not talking Big Brother here, but instead, how can this seemingly (in)valuable be used in conjunction with other data to provide even more value and functionality to an employee and its organization?  Is there a way, a purpose, a reason to leverage these device metrics in conjunction with other enterprise applications?  Is there value in taking the GPS data (for example) and integrating it into the CRM application you have recently mobilized?  That's a pretty basic one - my sense is there are a lot of ways GPS could be leveraged - but what if other core device data could be used with applications? 

This also creates an interesting set of issues and opportunities.  Let's start with the opportunities - new systems integration and application development possibilities.  It could take Location Based Services to a new height.  However, the flip side is that there are all the Big Brother issues, particularly when you take into account the fact that devices are no longer solely corporate liable devices.  I can see how some people may not want THEIR device tapped by some other back end solutions (beyond email).

Regardless, I'm thinking this could be a new subcategory of Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) called Mobile Device Data Management (MDDM).  In any case, there you have it.  I'm throwing out the first thought that came from putting my thinking cap on this morning.  Am I on to something, or have I just not had enough coffee yet?