Top 10 Most Important Features for Enterprise Smartphone Management Solutions

A new report from Forrester confirms a trend we've been reporting: enterprises are turning away from "one size fits all" organization-owned smart phone phone strategies in favor of multi-device, employee owned smart phone strategies. Of the firms polled by Forrester, approximately half are already embracing a multiplatform strategy, and nearly 60% support personally owned smartphones. Many enterprises are considering solutions to augment or replace their Blackberry Enterprise Servers. Forrester has identified the ten most important features for smart phone device management solutions, and ten vendors that offer all ten features.

Challenges for the enterprise

According to Forrester, IT is struggling with a two-fold challenge: mobile device management and security. To solve this problem, enterprises are increasingly investing in device-agnostic solutions. In the firm's report on mobile application development, Forrester recommends creating Web applications, instead of native applications, whenever possible.

Key Functionality for Smartphone Management Solutions

Forrester identified ten key pieces of functionality for smart phone solutions. The first seven are key features that have standardized across most device management solutions:

• Configuration management
• Security management
• Central console
• Over-the-air (OTA) intelligence, troubleshooting, and support
• Asset management and reporting
• Software management
• Scalability

The other three are newer but increasingly important functionality:

• Remote control
• Device recovery
• Self-service portals

Of the 26 solutions Forrester evaluated, the following ten include all ten key pieces of functionality:

• AirWatch
• FancyFon
• Fromdistance
• Good Technology
• MobileIron
• RIM
• Smith Micro
• Sybase
• Trust Digital
• Zenprise

However, many other solutions contain important and useful solutions, so enterprises should consider other possibilities. For example, Motorola's MSP solution can also manage peripheral devices such as cash registers, scanners, RFID readers, printers, signature capture pads, and kiosks, and SOTI's MobiControl supports location-based asset tracking features.

What the Future Holds for Smart Phones in the Enterprise

Forrester makes the following three predictions for the near future:

• Support for BlackBerry, iOS, and Android will be a top priority for IT managers
• Vendor consolidation will continue
• True convergence of smartphone and PC management is inevitable but still years away