MacTech: Mobile Device Management (MDM) Primer

I saw this article today. It looked like something those who are trying to manage iPads in enterprise or education might find useful.

Mobile Device Management (MDM) is an industry term describing solutions that facilitate the remote management of mobile devices. Typically mobile devices could be laptops, personal digital assistants (PDA's), rugged data collection devices and smart phones. Most of the mobile device management solutions focus on the PDA and the smart phone population, given the general difficulty of managing these small highly mobile devices.

Mobile Device Management (MDM) software secures, monitors, manages and supports mobile devices deployed across mobile operators, service providers and enterprises. MDM functionality typically includes over-the-air distribution of applications, data and configuration settings for all types of mobile devices, including mobile phones, smartphones and tablets, mobile printers, mobile POS devices, etc. This applies to both company-owned and employee-owned devices across the enterprise or mobile devices owned by consumers.

The moment management of the Smartphones and Tablets in the corporate environment comes in picture, the concern areas that immediately strike the Enterprise are:

• Consistent security policies on all devices
• Controlled usage of personal applications like Facebook and WhatsApp
• Wipe out critical corporate data if the device is lost
• How to track and manage the diversely distributed mobile workforce
• Install and update applications remotely.

It was interesting to read that..