In a recent article for TechBeacon, industry insider Matthew David examines how mobility is evolving in a “pandemic-driven work-from-home” environment.
In the article, he describes how, in this new work environment, it’s more necessary than ever to have a way to manage employee devices and access to data. At a time when employees are working from every corner of the world, it’s more important than ever to have a good solution to manage access to data and company apps.
He continues, examining how employers ought to manage devices, as well as the need for strong device management, and mobile app curation (in a nutshell).
The twist is that he is looking at all of this through the lens of MDM, and why it’s the best approach to today’s security problems. MDM, he believes, has evolved to meet today’s challenges, and is a good investment for today’s businesses that are looking to keep a stronger hold on company data.
Unsurprisingly, we disagree with the conclusion of the article that MDM is the best way forward. As early as ten years ago (!), we talked about the benefits of a MAM approach versus an MDM, and we’ve been singing that tune every year since.
As we argued last year, and of course still believe, MDM actually has not grown in sophistication as our usage of mobile devices has evolved, and we think it’s telling that we were already talking about this as early as 2011. An MDM is a more invasive solution–think “a hammer when you need a screwdriver”–and a targeted approach like MAM gives you most (or all) of the functionality you need without requiring users to give up more control than they would like.
These days, an MDM just isn’t necessary to accomplish your security goals, and what’s more, your employees will appreciate the secure environment without the heavy-handed approach of an MDM. To learn more about how App47 manages the mobile app security needed in today’s environment, check out our security page.
Of course, we don’t disagree with all of the premise of David’s article. There’s no doubt that today’s work-from-home/hybrid work environment presents new security challenges that were not nearly as widespread even just a couple of years ago. And, companies should have good control over the apps their employees have easy access to. We just think that an MAM and enterprise app store approach is a better way to tackle the problem than MDM.
So: what are you waiting for? If you’d like to discuss the merits of MAM compared to MDM, contact us today. We’d love to chat!
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