At CTIA, MoGo has announced its second generation of modular sleeves that can turn a $200 device into a touch, enterprise ready tablet with extra battery capacity, optional laser bar code reader and many more options. Basically, if the order is large enough, MoGo will even design and build it for the customer.
Problem: expensive enterprise tablets are expensive and outdated
Just to shed some light into this particular market, it used to be that “enterprise” devices may cost $1200 or more. However, if you look at their specifications, they are often powered by lesser hardware, low-resolution screens and possibly outdated OS versions. In short, the “enterprise” version of an Android tablet could cost 6X more for essentially added toughness and extra security.
Some add-ons that Mobelisk is considering
Solution: use off the shelf hardware and adapt to enterprise usage
The Mobelisk product has been designed to address this by using a principle of “modularity”. My standardizing the add-ons (scanners, credit card swipes…), MoGo doesn’t have to custom-design a whole device, and not only brings the price down, it also opens more options for customers.
In a nutshell, Mobelisk is a tablet case, that goes into another tablet case. I’ll call them internal and external shell for the purpose of this article. The internal shell is custom built for each target device (Nexus 7, iPad mini, Galaxy Tab 7″, Galaxy Note 8…) to effectively turn them into a standard device for the external shell that offers additional protection (IP54+), battery (4000mAh) and add-ons. If the volume is low, MoGo builds them with 3D printers, but for higher volumes, they would switch to a regular industrial manufacturing process. This means that Mobelisk it is highly customizable.
The 3D-printing can make the cases look a bit rough, especially when compared to glossy consumer products like Speck cases and the likes. However, this is probably the most cost-efficient way to tackle the problem right now.
If you wonder how the tablet buttons work, here’s a neat thing: MoGo uses electro-mechanical buttons, which are remote-controlled physical buttons inside the internal shell. It’s really smart because it freeds the external shell from having a one-to-one match with the original device button placements.
In terms of security, Mobelisk runs an enterprise virtualization platform that prevents work data from being accessed or corrupted by user apps etc. This is fairly common now, and this is the efficient and popular option in the work place these days. There is physical security too: MoGo has put in place a system that detects attempts to open the case, and that will trigger a device lockdown or wipe. Finally, customers have some freedom is terms of colors if they really want to match their corporate branding (restaurants…).
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