Mobile Device Management – What is it and how is it implemented?
Mobile Device Management (MDM) is simply a piece of software that allows your IT Staff to control a portion of your employee’s smartphone. No, it does not allow them to see your text messages or pictures. It does allow them to enforce policies for corporate information on smartphones and tablets. The purpose of MDM is to improve the security of mobile devices and protect your corporate environment.
According to Novell, a laptop or table is stolen every 53 seconds and 113 cell phones are lost or stolen every minute.
Novell
Mobile Device Management is an endpoint software product.
The MDM server can either reside in your on-premise environment, as Software as a Service or hosted on the Cloud. Your IT team can configure policies or applications through the MDM server. In today’s Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) world it protects any sensitive corporate information from being leaked if your employee misplaces their smartphone. IT Administrators can wipe the phone of all corporate email and not worry about the information getting into the wrong hands.
Common Mobile Device Management features:
- Device inventory and tracking
- Application deployment
- Remote wipe of the device
- Password enforcement
- Data Encryption
According to Novell, a laptop or tablet is stolen every 53 seconds and 113 cell phones are lost or stolen every minute. The cost to recover from a data breach is getting increasingly expensive every year and more and more businesses are looking for a solution to this problem
MDM solutions are only as useful as their implementation and ongoing management by your IT Staff.
Putting in a company technology policy is also very important so your employees participating in either a BYOD program or using a corporate-owned device have a clear expectation or what the MDM software can do. Education is the easiest way for your staff to feel comfort in knowing that you are not going through their personal information. If you would like assistance with evaluating solutions please contact us.
The team at ACS has years of experience in deploying MDM solutions and can help you too.
