Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve spent a considerable amount of time putting together a few useful resources for businesses that need to select an enterprise mobility vendor. Along the way, we’ve stressed two things: 1), that you need to understand what type of enterprise mobility profile your business fits, and 2), that you must also understand what kind of security needs your business has.
But knowing both of those things isn’t enough. You may have a great understanding of your business’ needs and a general understanding of what you need to consider regarding security, but still be overwhelmed by the myriad options of enterprise mobility vendors. (In our experience, many businesses feel this way.)
The trouble is, unlike a server farm, for which you can go to one vendor and just be done with it, enterprise mobility is still a nascent market that hasn’t yet seen many vendors offering comprehensive solutions. To cover all of your mobility needs within the enterprise, you’re likely going to have to contract with more than one vendor. For example, a business may have a BYOD policy in place but also offer full-scale private apps–in which case an MDM vendor wouldn’t cover all your needs.
To help you make sense of what matters and what doesn’t when selecting an enterprise mobility vendor (or vendors), we put together a table using our mobility and security profiles that shows you what needs your vendor or vendors needs to cover. Have a look below to see the full table:
[table tablesorter=”o” class=”table table-border”]
” “,Platform/MDM,Container,App,Cloud,Web,None/Virtual Desktop
Inactive,Consider
BYOD,Consider,Consider
BYOD + Public Apps,Consider,Consider,Consider
Web-Based Apps,,,Consider,Consider,Must
Limited Private Apps,,,Must,Consider,Consider,Consider
Full-Scale Private Apps,,,Must,Consider,Consider,Consider
[/table]
Using this table, if your business is BYOD only, you should look for a solution that covers platform/MDM and container-based security. If you deploy a limited number of private apps, your enterprise mobility vendor(s) must cover apps, and may also cover the cloud, the web, and virtual desktop-based solutions. It’s possible to exist in more than one category or profile, so don’t be afraid of addressing multiple needs at once.
To get started in enterprise mobility, you’re probably going to have to work with multiple vendors–at least until enterprise mobility sees the same type of convergence that we’ve seen in the past with other emerging technologies. We hope this chart is useful for figuring out what you must or should consider when selecting your vendors!
If you have questions about this chart or how to use it, don’t hesitate to reach out in the comments or on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you!
