Mark Bridge writes:

Security is often a balancing act - and security on mobile devices is no exception. If procedures and processes aren't tough enough, you'll compromise the security of the information you're protecting. But if your security is too tight or if it seems too complicated to an end user, that user is likely to find a way round your security by doing something else instead.

Carsten Mickeleit, the CEO of Cortado, is well aware of the challenge. His company, known as ThinPrint until earlier this year, enables cloud-based access to documents for individuals (Cortado Workplace) and for businesses (Cortado Corporate Server). It means employees can enjoy remote access to their desktop without the company having to provide them with a particular kind of mobile phone or tablet.

I caught up with Carsten last week in London, where he was talking about the HTML5 client that's been officially announced by Cortado today. With many business users wanting to use their own smartphone, tablet or laptop to access company information - and many businesses seeing financial savings from the 'bring your own device' trend - this new HTML5 option seems an obvious move for Cortado. Corporate users now have a browser-based option for PCs and Macs as well apps for iPads, iPhones, Android devices and BlackBerry smartphones.

Carsten explained how limiting the options available to business users can result in them emailing documents to private accounts, uploading files to uncontrolled cloud services or simply copying information to a CD or USB stick. Cortado's cloud desktop gives IT administrators the control and tracking they want while still giving the end user access to their files, including the ability to print, email or even convert to PDF. Most importantly, communication between the corporate server and the device is encrypted - and on-device encryption can also be used.

As well as its focus on the 'cloud desktop', Cortado is a big fan of cloud printing - which is no surprise when you consider the company's ThinPrint heritage. It's a founder member of the Cloud Printing Alliance; a group committed to a wireless printing solution that works independently of mobile device, printer or file type. In conjunction with Cortado's app, a user can print documents from the cloud by using almost any printer attached to their chosen wireless network.