Movie-going Dwarves with Machinery? Mangled Dimes Manifesto? MDM actually stands for Mobile Device Management, but I wanted to see what other MDM acronyms I could make up. (It's surprisingly hard- not a lot of very fun M or D words were coming to mind. I'll blame it on my stomach virus.)
MDMs are the new "It" thing in town on the mobile scene. InformationWeek just released an article about how the changing mobility space is ushering on a whole new set of data risks beyond just encryption. And they're right. As mobility becomes more commonplace, people need to worry more about the various terrible things that can happen to their information beyond just the transmission part (getting from point A to point B).
BlackBerry was initially the poster child for security (and had a great headstart in the enterprise game, winning over many companies as the mobile device of choice for a long while) because it had its BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), which not only made it easier for companies to integrate their mail systems onto employee devices, but also made company leadership feel a little bit comforted from a security standpoint. Then, iPhone and all these Android devices launched onto the scene.
They had a bit of a harder time because, although they were a hit with the consumers, they were a bit of a dud when it came to security (esp. Android with its open development stance...Apple at least could point to its very strict, "walled garden" approach). Then Good arrived. All hail Good! Good (aptly named) freed countless workers from the pain of carrying two phones for the sake of being chained to the BlackBerry (I know there are some of you out there that carry two any way for "privacy purposes", but I promise the company doesn't care about your booty call texting and you probably shouldn't be doing drug deals on your phones any way. Especially during business hours. I mean c'mon.).
Now we're in a brand new world. A Brave New World even. But mostly new. Let's just go with new, the other connotations are a bit creepy. Now Google has partnered with Motorola, thereby sharing its 3LM (three laws of mobility) service, which claims to have set a standard of security within the Android service itself. Exciting stuff. So why do people care about this so much right now? Because MDMs help control and protect. How? Well, Good is really mostly known for its email capabilities. Newer MDMs, like 3LM offer a suite of services including (but not limited to):
- remote wipe
- device tracking
- app blocking/pushing
- peripheral blocking/control
- emergency lock
It'll be interesting to see how these trends in security evolve. It's really focused on functionality right now, I imagine in the future it will evolve to control data usage/content.
No comments:
Post a Comment