Companies are facing a drastic transformation as more mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, appear in the workplace. Bob Tinker, CEO of MobileIron, a mobile security company based in Mountain View, California, dubs this transition the "death of the PC era."

"The mobile model…is going to be the model for all enterprise computing, because no enterprise can count on their employees doing 100 percent of their work at their desk all day or only accessing it from their corporate PC," said Bob Tinker, CEO of MobileIron. "People are going to be productive in whatever way they need to be productive."

In an interview with CRN, Tinker described how channel partners can hold their customers' hands in shifting to a mobile model. Following are excerpts of the interview.-

What does a mobile-centric workplace mean for customers?

It's a big change for customers, but they're embracing it, because they realize that productivity is the most important thing that they need to be able to deliver. But at the same time the enterprise IT organization needs to make sure the data is secure. Being able to balance both of those is a victory for the CIOs of most large enterprise companies.

The amount of economic productivity of shifting to the mobile model is breathtaking, and it’s a terrfric opportunity for customers, but they're nervous about doing it, they need help. That's where the opportunity for channel partners comes in.

What does this transition mean for the channel?

What this means for the channel partners out there is that they need to be constantly looking for the best of breed technologies that their customers are going to choose.

Customers are self-assembling best of breed technology into whatever they need to be able to run their business. The idea of 'I am a such-and-such shop' is gone. In the old days someone would say I'm a Microsoft shop, but now that nomenclature is gone.

The implication of that is that channel partners need to figure out how they assemble that best of breed technology so they can deliver the solutions to their customers. It creates a huge opportunity for the channel to help their customers assemble these solutions, but it will require them to think more broadly.