The Changing Face of Mobility and Enterprise Mobility Management

In the beginning of the relationship between business and mobile, there were asset tags that would track company cell phones. Secure and done. When smart phones came on the scene, it was clear that what was essentially a walking computer workstation needed to be managed somehow. Mobile Device Management (MDM) emerged from those early wild west BYOD stages as a solution to deal with the growing mobile workforce. Today those solutions have evolved into enterprise mobility management platforms, also known as EMM.

One of the leading players in the industry in the field of EMM is SOTI Inc. The company introduced a new platform recently called Mobicontrol 13.0. Aligned with enterprise system needs, the company has integrated open APIs so that its device management functionality can be easily integrated into a variety of business workflows. Examples of this include device lifecycle management, data migration, and device inventory management.

Through this evolving platform, SOTI has continued to provide management and security to an industry with specific needs. A number of factors in the mobile industry and the needs of enterprise have been behind the continued evolution of mobile developments. All the while, an increasing level of corporate content has been mobilized as devices have become more interconnected and more available than ever. The information that flows to and from mobile includes proprietary information, documents, and sensitive elements that need to be secured. MDM was never designed to secure corporate documents, as the focus was on devices themselves. EMS systems have the ability to protect business data across all types of devices including applications, settings, corporate email, certificates, and proprietary data. EMM systems are also able to whitelist and blacklist certain apps which may provide a security risk to the organization.

EMM platforms are able to provide contextual protection of content as it is mobilized on an ever expanding base of devices. By implementing security at the application, device, and every layer throughout the spectrum, EMM systems provide a composite approach to protecting mobility in the enterprise. Other enterprise aspects of EMM systems include containerization and corporate update deployment capabilities. SOTI is positioned to integrate with the tools of the enterprise at a granular level, which makes a compelling case for the future of the platform as its API integration and utilization begins to seep into active enterprise deployments.

For more on the future of mobility and BYOD in the workforce, follow the upcoming ITEXPO presentations, “Mobility: 6 Things Top Telecom Departments Know and Do Well!” and “Build a BYOD Business Case: Lessons Learned from the Trenches.”