Mobility is a great enterprise tool for speeding up the decision-making process. Whether employees bring their own devices to the company (BYOD) or firms deliver them to their workforce, the ever-growing number of smartphone options and the recent explosion of tablet computers oblige IT departments to find efficient and secure ways for employees to use mobile devices in the workplace.
To address this problem, IBM (NYSE: IBM) unveiled endpoint manager for mobile devices, as RCR Wireless News previously posted. “The new environment represents a challenge for companies because it is the user who controls devices,” Eduardo Abreu, IBM’s manager for business development, told in an exclusive interview.
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Last January,IBM released it was opening up beta availability of a new service called IBM Endpoint Manager for Mobile Devices. Built on the Tivoli Big Fix technology that IBM acquired in the Summer of 2010, the service allows enterprises to manage a wide range of mobile devices brought to work by employees as well as standard endpoint management for desktop computers, all in the same software.
The company says the new software will allow remote wiping, encryption and compliance monitoring, in a native mobile environment. Supported devices include Apple iOS, Google Android, Symbian, and Microsoft Windows Phone.
According to Abreu, traditional endpoint management solutions do not fit mobile device platforms, which have unique running needs that disrupt the traditional paradigm. With the recent launch, IBM aims to provide a single solution to manage several aspects of BYOD, such as hardware and software configuration and inventory, as well as managing energy use and securing data.
“The most important thing we needed to do was simplify the day-to-day management and control of mobile devices, while integrating security and policies,” noted Abreu.
Abreu did not disclose revenue forecasts, but he used a recent survey by the Aberdeen Group, which found that 72% of responding companies allowed the BYOD practice to illustrate the potential market that IBM is eyeing. “Lots of enterprises are allowing professionals to bring their own devices into workplace, but it implies an increased complexity,” added Joaquin Campos, IBM’s Tivoli manager.
“The challenge is how to make sure employees use their equipment under corporate rules,” said Abreu.
IBM spent almost six months doing trials before launching IBM endpoint manager for mobile devices during a recent Pulse 2012 event, held March 4-7 in Las Vegas. “Some clients that tried out our solution are actually buying it now,” Abreu noted.
This is not the first time IBM has stepped into the IT consumerization phenomenon. Last December, Big Blue unveiled seven new social networking and collaboration mobile apps specifically designed to address enterprise-class requirements. IBM aims to go further in taking social networking, real-time collaboration and online meeting capabilities from behind the company firewall and placing it into the hands of tablet users.
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