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Individual vs Corporate Liable Device Strategies

Public Group active 3 weeks ago

This is a group where people can debate the individual vs corporate liable device strategy

Are you limiting the devices on your personal liable MDM solution? (12 posts)

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  • Avatar Image Matthew schulz said 4 months ago:

    With Android being so diverse, it seems very difficult for MDM providers to keep up with all the different ways of provisioning these different implementations of Android. Companies like ours end up having to triple our support options. We are thinking about limiting the device options you can connect to our MDM platform. Is your company or companies you are aware of going through the same thing?

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  • Avatar Image Philippe Winthrop said 4 months ago:

    I can absolutely see this happening….but are you ultimately going to end up with the Henry Ford model, meaning you can have any color you want as long as it’s Black? ;-)

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  • Avatar Image MobileAdmin said 3 months, 4 weeks ago:

    At the moment we use Good Technology and there are controls to limit devices based on OS build, model etc.

    iOS – 4.0 or higher (needed to support Apple API for management)

    Android 2.2 or higher (needed for device security)

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  • Avatar Image Philippe Winthrop said 3 months, 4 weeks ago:

    Good to know. Thanks for sharing that feedback.

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  • Avatar Image M Bowers said 3 months, 4 weeks ago:

    We are currently only supporting iOS and Blackberry devices due to the complexity of the Androids mentioned by Matthew . Our goal is and will always be to limit our “corporate footprint” on the device. We don’t want to take any functionality away from personally owned devices unless we absolutely have to.

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  • Avatar Image Jari Angesleva said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Well, there are lots of different MDM solutions out there with different level of supported devices and, more importantly, features. Check out also smaller players in the field, like SmartManager.

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  • Avatar Image Philippe Winthrop said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    That may apply for Android, but (please correct me if I’m wrong) when it comes to iOS, the major players are going to have feature parity.

    This is why one of the EMF predictions for 2012 is that Google will have to take over control of the MDM API development to ensure that there is such a thing as a baseline for Android device management.

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  • Avatar Image Jari Angesleva said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Hey, partly true for the Android, some vendors are faster for implementing new features when API’s are available than others, and also, some vendors have made deals with phone manufacturers like HTC and Samsung to have a more open access to API’s than others. iOS, yes, pretty much all vendors do support the same features.Then it’s only question how they have made the UI and usability of the MDM application for the IT managers. Cross policy features etc.

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  • Avatar Image Matthew schulz said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    A possible solution to the Android issue is allowing users to turn off these extra functions(i.e. Samsung SAFE) which should allow the base Android OS to utilize most MDM platforms.

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  • Avatar Image Philippe Winthrop said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    Samsung SAFE is a great idea…too bad it only works on Samsung devices. Google needs to take the lead in native APIs for EMM on Android. Samsung has stepped up because Google didn’t (I’m excluding 3LM from this discussion because the Moto acquisition is not complete yet).

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  • Avatar Image M Bowers said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    I agree, if Google wants Android to be viable in a corporate environment then they need to lead the way. Letting manufacturers dictate what MDM components are available makes it hard for us admins.

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  • Avatar Image Philippe Winthrop said 3 months, 2 weeks ago:

    +1 to @bowersmakr – The EMF is on the record stating that the enterprise is going to force Google to take over (more) ownership of native device management for Android.

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