Was just commenting on a post over at http://theemf.org/ about the constantly increasing complexity of mobile in the enterprise, especially given the recent introductions of iPad and iPhone OS 4.0. This is both the beauty and challenge of our industry. From the user’s perspective, the bar for mobile capabilities keeps getting raised and the experience keeps getting better and/or different.

The challenge is that enterprises aren’t used to moving at this kind of consumer-speed. It reminds me of that old car commercial (I think it was Lincoln from the 70’s) where a jeweler is sitting in the back seat trying to cut a diamond manually while the car speeds along at 70 mph.

The “jeweler” is the IT department and we (i.e. the folks building tools and platforms to help) are the car suspension. And it’s going to take a heck of a suspension to avoid the potholes!

2010 is shaping up to be the most fascinating and unpredictable year we’ve ever had in enterprise mobility.

We’ve been doing app development at work for iPad, so I was really excited yesterday to check it out on launch day. But the most interesting thing happened when I brought the iPad home. My two oldest kids, 12 and 5 years old, gravitated to it like moths to a flame. The “wow, this is cool” fascination that lit up their eyes really stuck with me.

On one hand, both have access to a home computer, a laptop, and an iPod Touch, so it’s not that they haven’t experienced a touch interface or lots of apps before. But the special sauce here was simply (and most powerfully) the form factor – small enough to be easily portable and large enough to do the things they care about – games, youtube, surfing, and messaging. Suddenly computing was available in every room and on every surface (couch, bed, floor, desk) of our house.

I watched my two little prognosticators of the future and realized that, in their minds, our home computer was now officially obsolete.