Has the Cloud Made Mobile Device Management a Thing of the Past?
Software vendors have come up with all types of mobile device manager suites that administer the corporate functions on company property. For example, Microsoft has had Mobile Device Management capabilities built into the past few distributions of SCCM. The concept of mobile device management brings about new challenges once already implemented. For example, once you have deployed mobile devices, how can you ensure that they get the same updates and how can you ensure data security without actually having full control over the device at all times?
The cloud takes care of this problem by design. Since all data and application instances are ran inside of the cloud, users can bring their own devices to work without using corporate devices. This means that anyone’s iPhone, Android or other smart phone can be used to access work applications securely just by tapping into the cloud.
This is the new way of doing mobile device management. Some have called it MDM 2.0. The concept of BYOD or Bring Your Own Device to work is starting to take hold because it is more cost efficient for companies to not have to buy hardware to distribute to their employees. It is also cumbersome for employees to carry around corporate devices in addition to their personal devices. MDM 2.0 stresses the fact that consumers buy the personal device they own because they like using it. This is why delivering your applications using the cloud is the premier method of delivering applications. For users who are always on the go, using applications in this manner makes much more sense especially given the fact that all of the data stays inside the cloud and applications installed on the user’s mobile device will not interfere with any corporate data or programs being executed in the cloud. BYOD is expected to generate more interest as businesses migrate away from the old methods of mobile device management and require that their applications are run using he cloud.
