How to Manage Droids in an Enterprise?

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MavsX

[H]ard|Gawd
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Does anybody have any experience in managing Droids/iPhones in an Enterprise environment?

We are moving from BlackBerrys to Droids/iPhones next month, and i need to figure this out asap. We have blackberry enterprise server in house, but, we just moved to BPOS so email will now be out sourced. In addition to that, we will be migrating to iPhones and Droids. I know how to set up the phones for email, my question is more along the lines of how to manage all the apps, etc.

I've been looking into a MDM(mobile device management) company called AirWatch, that will allow us to manage tablets, smartphones(BB, droids,apple) But, i'm wondering how we can manage the apps? How are you guys doing that? Can we buy an app for the whole company? or does each person still buy the app themselves. It looks like we can allow or block certain apps with AirWatch, but, not entirely sure.

Thanks fellas,
 
Just use activesync then, you can remote wipe and force passwords if that's what you're looking to do. Need Froyo or higher on the devices though. Unfortunately there is no real app management that route though, so if you really need to do that, you'll need a 3rd party app.

I've used Good in the past for old Treos, I think they have something more granular for android, but I've not used it specifically.
 
We've been using purely active sync and it does a pretty good job. I kind of wish we would stick with more blackberries honestly
 
I don't know anything about managing Android devices, but Apple does have an enterprise management tool for the i-devices and other OSX machines.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/server/

Profile Manager offers you simple yet powerful ways to set up and remotely manage computers running Lion and iOS devices such as iPad and iPhone. It also simplifies the creation of user accounts for mail, calendar, contacts, and chat; enforcement of restrictions; PIN and password policies; configuration of system settings; and more. Because it’s integrated with the Apple Push Notification service, Profile Manager can send out updated configurations over the air automatically. And it includes web-based administration, so you can manage your server from any modern web browser. Profile Manager even gives users access to a self-service web portal where they can download and install new configuration profiles, as well as clear passcodes and remotely lock or wipe devices that are lost or stolen.
Click to expand...
 
I don't even want to know how your organization decides to switch platforms prior to you figuring out how to manage them.

We use Good to manage out android and apple devices, as well as BES for our blackberry platforms.

However Good is more of a secure messaging platform than a mobile management platform. And I'm not sure how it works with BPOS.

Here, courtesy of Air-watch, you can look at the major players in this space.

http://www.air-watch.com/reports/gartner-mdm-magic-quadrant.html
 
Darthkim said:
I don't even want to know how your organization decides to switch platforms prior to you figuring out how to manage them.

We use Good to manage out android and apple devices, as well as BES for our blackberry platforms.

However Good is more of a secure messaging platform than a mobile management platform. And I'm not sure how it works with BPOS.

Here, courtesy of Air-watch, you can look at the major players in this space.

http://www.air-watch.com/reports/gartner-mdm-magic-quadrant.html
Click to expand...

yeah, that Gartner report is how we found out about Air-Watch, i had originally been researching Sybase, but, it just looked wayyyy to complicated.

Yeah, we are finally switching to BPOS from in house GroupWise. We still have BBs, and we can run them on BPOS for free, but, we want to move to Droids. I actually got my Droid today, so i can start playing around with it, so i know how to work the bad boy. I've got a demo set up with Air Watch sometime next week, so maybe they will be able to give me some insight.
 
ND40oz said:
Just use activesync then, you can remote wipe and force passwords if that's what you're looking to do. Need Froyo or higher on the devices though. Unfortunately there is no real app management that route though, so if you really need to do that, you'll need a 3rd party app.

I've used Good in the past for old Treos, I think they have something more granular for android, but I've not used it specifically.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it looks like this air-watch.com MDM software will do what i want, but, i was just wondering if anybody else has had to deal with apps and shit
 
l00segravel said:
Its too late for some of us...It can't be taken back now... If I am stuck I want to take others with me. :D
Click to expand...

LOL! Actually Good for Android is not near as bad as Good for iPhone/iPad. I've actually been exposed to Good since back in the dedicated device days and then Palm.
 
Darthkim said:
I don't even want to know how your organization decides to switch platforms prior to you figuring out how to manage them.
Click to expand...
That's what we experts in the industry like to call "SOP". I have worked at a few places where the decision was made and the devices were ordered long before IT was ever notified of management's intent. In fact, at one place the first we heard of it was when management brought in the first shipment of phones and plopped it down on some help desk peon's desk and told them to make it work with our email system. You can imagine everyone's surprise.

You'd think that the person doing this was outside of IT. Some marketing exec or something ( they're guilty of all sorts of stupid ). But no. This was the CIO that did it. He couldn't figure out why we didn't have it fully implemented by the next week, nor did he understand why many of us were upset about the way the project was handled. Managing the devices wasn't even the worst part; controlling corporate data on uncontrolled devices was.

I am so thankful I am no longer there.
 
My company uses Good for Android & MobileIron for iphones

If this helps your decision i switched to an iPhone because i didnt like how Good was implemented.

With mobile Iron you still get good security, without destroying the end user experience.
 
I know this doesn't help probably but as Google Apps customers managing android and iOS platforms are dead simple.

For iOS, we just send the user an email with a .mobileconfig file created in the iPhone Configuration Utility. For android, the user just needs to install the app called Device Policy. Everything else is controlled from the Google Apps control panel. No separate solution needed.
 
I'm using exchange 2010 and I tested wiping an iPhone 3G, it did a full wipe w/o any issues.

However all the Android phones I've tested don't allow wiping. I've tried HTC & Samsung. Exchange support on Android is pretty poor.
 
looks to me like, i'm going to avoid Good at all costs. I wish this air-watch.com sales guy would call me back
 
MavsX said:
looks to me like, i'm going to avoid Good at all costs. I wish this air-watch.com sales guy would call me back
Click to expand...

I actually have an demo with air-watch later on this week. But my company is looking at them for their app deployment ( app store) and app management capabilities.

My company is so far trying to keep MDM solutions separate from MAM (and app store) solutions. It should be interesting how the space shapes up over the next few years. When talking to vendors who make private apps stores and who sell MDM solutions, they seem to think that MDM and MAM solutions will converge as vendors buyout/merge with each other.

And that Gartner MDM article, its interesting to note that their are some young firms on the list, and then there also a lot of firms that have done laptop management( and other devices) for a number of years that are just entering the MDM space.

Fiberlink has a product for device management, called MaaS360, which also should be on the Gartner Magic Quadrant Report.
 
MavsX said:
\

I've been looking into a MDM(mobile device management) company called AirWatch, that will allow us to manage tablets, smartphones(BB, droids,apple) But, i'm wondering how we can manage the apps? How are you guys doing that? Can we buy an app for the whole company? or does each person still buy the app themselves. It looks like we can allow or block certain apps with AirWatch, but, not entirely sure.

Thanks fellas,
Click to expand...

Mobile App Manage and Device Management can be seen as two different things. I am doing an internship at a large company (like 5000+ employees in the IT Dept alone), and one of the projects i have been doing is researching private internal App Stores solutions. Many firms offer App store solutions that have some kind of Mobile App Management (MAM) Capability. The app store handles app distribution, wheather internally developmented, or so white listed apps. Some App Stores do MAM by providing security wrappers around the apps that distributed (I'm still learning the specifics as to how this done). So the App store serves as the admin portal for managing apps, licenseing, etc.

I have been looking at AppCentral, Apperian, Air-watch and Partnerpedia for App Deployment and MAM.

At that point the MDM platform just manages the devices and it doesn't care what apps are on the system. I have been seeing MDM products do App Deployment ( app store) and app management, but if that isn't their core focus, they may not excel it. Also, if you are looking at MDM solutions, you may want to check out MDM products that also do Telecom Expense Management (TEM). That feature may be useful depending on where your company and employees operate.

Currently, my firm uses Blackberrys and I have seen a few people use iPhones that had Good on them for secure messaging. MDM is 'owned' and operated by a different department than what I work in, so i don't know what their though processes are on the our MDM strategy if we ever decide to transition away from Blackberry and BES.
 
Does anyone have a good suggestion for a remote control/screen sharing solution with the androids for a corp enviroment? I haven't found anything that suits my needs yet
 
Langly said:
Do you know anything from experience if a normal business can use the remote viewing part of the program? Looks like they only offer it to Phone manufacturers and providers
Click to expand...

I never used the android stuff, that's new. But A year ago we had it and it was flawless remoting into Mac and PC. The technician's user interface is pretty nice and easy to use.
 
MikeTrike said:
I never used the android stuff, that's new. But A year ago we had it and it was flawless remoting into Mac and PC. The technician's user interface is pretty nice and easy to use.
Click to expand...

I emailed them about android support to see if they sell it to us non-phone industry guys. I've been searching the past few hours to no avail for anything. An enterprise management solution for android involves a lot and I haven't found a product that fulfills everything I need yet :(.
 
Langly said:
I emailed them about android support to see if they sell it to us non-phone industry guys. I've been searching the past few hours to no avail for anything. An enterprise management solution for android involves a lot and I haven't found a product that fulfills everything I need yet :(.
Click to expand...

At first glance it looks like just remote support. You'll probably want this in tandem with a proper device management solution like one of the others noted.
 
We use GOOD for Enterprise for Android/iPhone/iPads, and regular BES for the Blackberry users
 
Well I chatted with bomgar about the services offered for Android. They don't offer remote control/assistance due to "carriers won't flip the switch to allow access". Makes no sense cause I can remote support Blackberries and Iphones with Logmein :/ Its cool if I can send files, check hardware info etc. but I want to be able to see the end-users screen and let them show me what they are talking about. Having that ability will make our Desktop teams job a LOT easier if we switch from BB's to androids.

Oh well, time to talk with my Verizon contacts if what bomgar's sales guy told me was true.
 
It's the same BS reason why you can't e.g. buy a phone from Motorola for the Verizon network without any of the pre-loaded Verizon "enhancements"

How many phones are we talking about? Considered maintaining your own ROM?
 
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