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One of the major trends we have seen in business in 2011 is how enterprises are coping with the movement of employees to bring their own mobile devices to work. There are a plethora of problems associated with the bring-your-own-device culture, from security to application and device management to employee reimbursements. This is an ongoing topic that is not going to go away any time soon.

Research firm Forrester has come out with a roadmap of how to "build an operations stairway to a mobile future." The firm outlines seven key aspects that will help IT departments prioritize efforts in the mobile enterprise, from workforce segmentation to how to handle multi-platform development. Check out Forrester's results below.

We've written before about Viadeo, a business-oriented social network. Today they announced opening up their API and to get folks interested, they are starting a contest for the best app developed on their platform. The contest will run until October 14, and the top winner will receive 10 large plus a year of free service on their site.

James Turner writes in this month's IEEE Spectrum of a neat project, and if you are looking for something to do over the long weekend it could be a fun one too: how to turn your iPad into a fully-functioning oscilloscope, and one that you take with you to impress your friends and be the uber-nerdy hit at parties too.

There are separate iPad and iPhone apps, you'll need iOS v3.1.3 or later to run it.

Earlier this month Accellion has released Android and BlackBerry versions of their Mobile Apps suite that were previously available just for iOS devices. Like MobileEcho and Rover, they provide mechanisms for enterprise mobile users to securely exchange information and collaborate from their smartphones.

CDN services provider Cotendo announced today what they claim is the world's first purpose-built Mobile Acceleration Suite. Designed to specifically eliminate latencies found on mobile broadband networks, the suite will be able to take applications and tailor the content to any mobile device without customers have to rewrite their applications for each device.

Cloud solution provider Appirio announced today a new mobile application framework that enables consultants and customers to build custom, native mobile apps without writing native iOS device code for extending Salesforce.com to mobile apps

RunKeeper, a mobile application for tracking your exercise and online community for fitness buffs, opened its API to the public today. Dubbed the HealthGraph, it will provide access to the variety of health and fitness data stored in RunKeeper, such as exercise, sleep, weight and blood pressure. Developers will then be able to build new applications that build upon and make sense of this data.

You can find the API documentation here.

Given the results of this recent McAfee report about how much information is on mobile devices, if your employees are using iPhones and iPads for business and you are in management or their IT department, you might be worried. Why? Because these devices are inherently insecure. Any file left on these devices can be accessed by any application, so your corporate pricing documents could be easily obtained by an exploit or by a thief grabbing the device itself.

Developers looking to reach the mobile audience (and who isn't these days?) have to determine which mobile platforms to code for, which ones to skip and how to approach the design for their mobile website itself.

But before even getting started, there's one question many small companies have to face: which do you build first? Do you build the mobile website before or after building a mobile application, be it for Android, iPhone, Blackberry or whatever platform you want to reach? Or would you be better off starting with an app?

At this week's developer conference, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse announced a new service for Sprint customers: a mobile payment solution called Sprint Mobile Wallet. The system will come pre-loaded on new Sprint handsets and will be made available for download from "Sprint Zone," a pre-installed app featuring news, tips, tricks and a curated collection of Sprint's favorite apps.

What's unique about the Mobile Wallet solution is that it will allow customers to pay for both digital and physical goods using their phones. And for developers, noted Hesse, the app provides a new way to monetize mobile applications.