Smartphones Android, iOS Apple - Enterprise mobility risks

Smartphones have rapidly become an integral part of our daily lives, as well as a vital tool in our business communications. Originally, these devices suffered from a lack of autonomy and complexity. Security aspects were relegated to the background. Since the arrival of the latest generation of iPhone, Android and Symbian devices, functionality has been combined with a "usability" adapted to the demands of both regular and professional users.

Intrinsically, smartphones have become more autonomous thanks to an increasingly integrated architecture. They have moved away from PC models, using both low-power and highly integrated processors.

The technological turning point was the use of ARM-type processors, based on reduced instruction set architectures (RISC), reducing the number of transistors, optimizing the architecture and thus lowering power consumption. Their architecture calls for greater integration of components, and the use of controllers dedicated to functions directly managed by hardware components, limiting software interpretation.

Using ARM or Qualcomm processors, the heart of a smartphone consists of a SOC (System On Chip), based on a processor, and various components such as the DSP (Digital Signal Processor) for 3G frequency band processing, as well as signal and image processing. In addition, graphics components such as the graphics gas pedal enable the decoding of various video formats and the invocation of the GPS geolocation component.

These peripheral components consume a lot of energy, especially data transmission and reception via 3G-type networks. Today, manufacturers are implementing optimization software stacks to make the smartphone more autonomous than the 2 or 3 hours observed.