BYOD And MDM: 10 Vendors That Get It

MDM Market In Flux

The market for mobile device management software in its current state is headed for eventual extinction as the industry focus moves toward mobile application control and containerization, said research firm Gartner. This new approach separates corporate data from personal data on a device. With more than 100 MDM vendors in the market, the survivors are going to need to innovate in ways that address the vexing problem of the BYOD phenomenon, the research firm said.

CRN interviewed industry analysts, channel executives and chief information security officers about and found 10 vendors we believe are agile enough to address technology disruptions.

Check out the rest ofCRN's BYOD special report, available exclusively on the CRN Tech News App.

10. BoxTone

CEO: Alan Snyder

Columbia, Md.-based BoxTone is a favorite among MSPs and systems integrators because it enables them to offer the company's MDM product as a set of services. It has connectors to third-party systems management tools and offers help-desk support that pledges to resolve calls in three minutes or less. The company's Enterprise Mobility Management platform has plug-and-play modules for asset management, performance management and other capabilities. BoxTone also has mobile application management features and partners with a number of other MDM vendors to provide additional capabilities.

9. Absolute Software

CEO: John Livingston

Absolute Software, based in Vancouver, got a big win when Samsung said it would use the company's software. Samsung said it will embed Absolute Software's persistence module into some of its mobile devices to provide a constant connection for locating and monitoring devices, even if the firmware is removed and reinstalled. Absolute Software also supports Samsung's Knox mobile security container functionality. Absolute Software sells Manage MDM, which is available as a stand-alone product or as a component with its complete platform. It addresses BYOD with automated employee enrollment and BYOD-specific policy enforcement. The company said its engineering team is working on mobile application management capabilities.

8. Fixmo

CEO: Rick Segal

Based in Toronto, Fixmo bases its mobile strategy on mobile risk management. The company has container capabilities for BYOD. It sells its platform in a series of modules, which begins with SafeZone for email and two-factor authentication. It also offers SafeLock for support of Samsung Knox, the hardware maker's mobile security product, and AppZone for mobile application management. Other modules support device integrity verification, data loss prevention and encryption.

7. SAP Afaria

Co-CEOs: Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe (SAP)

Walldorf, Germany-based enterprise resource planning software maker SAP got into mobile security as a result of its $5.8 billion acquisition of database management system vendor Sybase in 2010. Sybase was a pioneer in mobile device management with its iAnywhere products in 2000. SAP rebranded it Afaria and, in addition to direct sales, it licenses Afaria to distributor Ingram Micro. Gartner praises Afaria's container architecture and application development tools. SAP Afaria Cloud is the company's SaaS product. The company also has a partnership with Mocana for secure mobile app management capabilities, including containerization.

6. Citrix XenMobile

CEO: Mark Templeton

Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Citrix Sytems got into the mobile device management market when it acquired Zenprise in 2012. The company has combined CloudGateway, its enterprise management product, with XenMobile MDM. The company supports containerization via its Worx Mobile Apps component, which provides businesses with the ability to enforce controls such as data encryption, password authentication, inter-app policies and micro VPNs to specific mobile apps. XenMobile enables employees to have secure access to corporate files from any device. It incorporates an app store that delivers Windows, SaaS and mobile apps.

5. Fiberlink MaaS360

CEO: James Sheward

Based in Blue Bell, Pa., Fiberlink got its start in managing corporate laptops and extended its platform to mobile devices. Today, the company's MaaS360 is viewed positively by solution providers because it is a pure MDM cloud-based services offering. The product does not require an investment in hardware or internal IT resources to install and support it, said Charles Zwicker, director of commercial sales at Weidenhammer Systems. The company offers selective wipe capabilities to address BYOD, robust reporting features and a mobile application management component for businesses managing corporate mobile applications or interested in extending policies to specific mobile apps, Zwicker said.

4. Good Technology

CEO: King Lee

In the business since 2000, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Good Technology has been a pioneer in the MDM market. Gartner analysts praise Good Technology's corporate containerization, which provides complete containerization of corporate data from the device owner's personal data. The company owns dozens of patents and intellectual property rights in enterprise mobility and synchronization, device and application management, Gartner said. Good Technology allows IT teams to manage third-party and internally developed applications. The company also supports two-factor authentication and email encryption through its Good Vault mobile identity and access management product.

3. MobileIron

CEO: Bob Tinker

MobileIron offers both an on-site appliance and a SaaS version of its MDM platform. The company has mobile application management capabilities, enabling businesses to distribute enterprise and whitelisted apps companywide. MobileIron helps companies migrate from BlackBerry-only environments to multi-OS deployments, and its software can prevent email attachments from being distributed into consumer services such as Dropbox. It also provides a gateway to encrypt sensitive documents. Channel executives have praised the company's partner program.

2. Symantec

CEO: Steve Bennett

Mobile security and the issues prompted by BYOD are an endpoint security problem, according to some businesses. While many organizations turn to point solutions or take a best-of-breed approach, many others will turn to their endpoint security vendor to solve their problems. While Kaspersky Lab, Sophos, McAfee and other vendors provide mobile antivirus protection and other mobile security, Symantec may be the endpoint security vendor in the best position to provide the most comprehensive protection, according to industry analysts. In addition to Odyssey Software, an MDM acquisition it made last year, the company snapped up Nukona, a pioneer in containerization. It extends authentication, encryption and other policies on specific mobile apps. It also can extend remote wipe capabilities to specific mobile applications.

1. AirWatch

CEO: John Marshall

Many of the vendors that are likely to survive are innovating by providing mobile application control and containerization. AirWatch, a mobile device management market leader, supports a container environment for corporate data with technology that places email, browsing and applications within a sandbox to enable IT to enforce security restrictions. It's done without impacting the device owner's personal data. The company has seen the most growth in its cloud-based business. Based in Atlanta, AirWatch has extended partnerships with resellers, distributors and Infrastructure-as-a-Service providers.