In response to a post by Martha Walz in the EMF blog, I shared my thoughts on the solution that will really solve the challenge.
I think you’re right on Martha, having started several companies managing mobiles devices is a total pain and puts a heavy strain on IT. This strain is somewhat necessary, because people are more engaged in mobile phones and are used to getting support from carriers stores or kiosks (very hard to find support for Windows except from friends, etc.). Thus employees can essentially take a huge load off IT by adopting an “IL” strategy. In one of my companies I moved to a tiered stipend based on the role of the employee, with one caveat – the employees adopts a phone that supports BES or ActiveSync.
However, at the end of your article you say MDM will solve that challenge. There is more to it than MDM. While MDM focuses on the “device”, why not focus on the App? Think about it this way, if a company felt comfortable that the App and the related company data is secure (cached, online access, etc.), do they care about the device itself? If you can PIN code the App, encrypted data at the App level, and remotely control policy (such as wipe the specific App), the company might not care about the device. Now for some self promotion – that’s our vision of Mobile Application Management here at App47. That’s what we built and are delivering now via the Cloud. You can see Chris Schroeder, our CEO, discuss this more here at the EMF.
Devices are important, but App is what drives value. That’s what the focus of Mobile Application Management should be.
