MobiDM – Managing Mobility From the Middle

How can a company you probably have never heard of position themselves to be managing mobile devices all over the globe? Only through the power of creating a network of partners, such as T-Mobile, Vodafone, BT, and Capgemini that places you smack in the middle of it all. That is exactly what Alex Bausch, CEO of VeliQ, set out to do and succeeded. I had the pleasure of meeting Alex at SAPPHIRE NOW and recently caught up with him for further details and insights.

VeliQ, the makers of MobiDM, started out in 2006 under the name of VeiligMobiel. Their first product secured Windows mobile smartphones for government agencies. But as the smartphone market evolved, so too did the product and the company. First, Bausch realized that the company’s name was too much of a mouthful for anyone outside of Holland to pronounce, so it was changed to VeliQ. Second, the product evolved into MobiDM, a cloud-based SaaS offering of what Bausch calls a “managed mobility ecosystem.”

MobiDM provides a middleware solution around three main areas; Mobile Device Management, Security, and Application Management. When developing the product, Bausch looked at the existing MDM solutions available and decided to build MobiDM leveraging Afaria.  “MobiDM is the mobile management middleware with the Afaria engine underneath,” Bausch noted. In 2008 they signed an OEM agreement with Afaria and haven’t looked back since.

Bausch believes that the service should be incredibly easy to use and sees that as a distinct advantage. He says comparatively “Afaria is a Boeing 747 with 500 levers, which you need a license and training for. MobiDM is like flying with JetBlue; come along for the ride and we’ll take care of everything.” Bausch believes that there is a time and a place for a more complex solution, but that MobiDM’s approach to simplicity is appealing to a large audience.

Bausch reaches that audience through lots of partnerships. In fact, the product is sold exclusively through partners. Bausch recalled that, “Because we were in Holland, there was lots of fragmentation to deal with. So we decided to sell exclusively through partners.” MobiDM has about 50 partners worldwide, made up of mostly telecom companies. Chances are you have never seen the MobiDM brand. That’s because partners such as Vodafone, T-Mobile, Sybase, and T-Systems all re-brand MobiDM’s service. “Our product is used under their own brand. That is the difference between us and a company like Airwatch; Airwatch sells direct.”

Through leveraging partnerships, MobiDM’s growth ramped up quickly. As Bausch put it, “We never sold MDM as a point solution; we sold the product as part of a mobile subscription. In year one we were up to 22,000 subscribers.” Their success doesn’t seem to show any signs of slowing either, as they signed 9 new partnerships in Q1 of this year. “The market is accelerating, that is why we believe in partnering and the ecosystem.”

With this kind of success, there have been other larger organizations that have tried to copy their offering. These solutions have since folded, while MobiDM continues today. “We have a different approach. We are successful because we have focus. We focused on usability, services andscalability.” As far as future competition, Bausch thinks that, “The threat is that there is so much money being thrown at [mobility management]. It creates a distortion field.”

So what does the future hold for Bausch and MobiDM? They recently released MobiDM Mobile Integrated Cloud. This allows subscribers to the service to integrate with Jamcracker, Single Sign On providers for AD integration, and line-of-business apps for SAP.  Bausch wants to only continue this partnering/ecosystem line of thinking. “The trend that we see is, it’s not MDM that is important, but rather it is the whole ecosystem.”  With the strong partnerships in place, and more to come, it is hard to see how they can lose.

 Mobile Device Management by MobiDM provides a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution which makes smartphone and PDA management easy. All your mobile devices can be installed, managed and secured from a single central portal, regardless of the type of device, network or operating system, leaving users free to go about their business with no loss of productivity.

The Desire for Enterprise Mobility

Yesterday there was a prolific (almost heated) exchange on Twitter regarding the correct use of enterprise mobility acronyms. Enterprise mobility has introduced an entire slew of acronyms into IT speak; BYOD, CoIT, MDM, MAM, MIM, EMM, etc. (*see below for the key).  However, the specifics of the Twitter exchange, and who is right and wrong, is not what I want to focus on. Instead, I want to take an historical approach as to why these new terms are emerging and how we should respond.

The dominant compute paradigm is changing. The birth of enterprise computing began with mainframes. A mainframe was a mysterious beast that was housed in an unknown place and did unknown things.  It was the ultimate black box. It was almost magical. The mainframe and our relationship to it was wonderfully personified as HAL 9000 in the film 2001 A Space Odyssey. A mainframe was cold, distant, and powerful. It acted in ways we didn’t fully understand.

As the dominant compute paradigm changed from the mainframe to the PC, so too did our relationship with computing. The PC was something we physically could see and touch on a daily basis. Computing went from something we shared to something that we individually owned. When it didn’t do what we wanted it to do we could swear at it and bang on the side of it. However, the PC was something we left at the office each day as we drove home “packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes” (virtual high five to anyone who can name that reference without using Google). We had a relationship with our PC, but it was bounded by office hours.

But now, with mobile devices, we never part with our computing device. We live in an anytime, anywhere always connected world. My relationship to this device is more intimate than ever. Not only is it physically with me at all times, but the device itself carries social status and social value. What phone you have says as much about you as the clothes you wear or the car you drive. The social circles you are a part of are determined by what apps you use. Your ability to keep connected to friends is dependent upon your mobile device. Many of us are in constant fear of losing our mobile device because of the pictures we’d lose of our kids or places we’ve been. The list goes on and on of how personal the mobile device has become. This will only increase as time goes on. We have stumbled into a culture that is intertwined with our new devices and in turn these devices are stumbling into the enterprise.

This desire for mobility is turning enterprise computing on its head. Not just from the fact that the devices are different but precisely because of our intimate nature with it. The desire to have these mobile capabilities and connectivity in our places of work represents the prime mover in our need for new acronyms. It is the spark that has caused the flame. The terms and idea behind BYOD and CoIT are desire driven. I want my device with me. I want to use it to do work. I like the device I have – hence BYOD. Beyond that, I believe my mobile device and apps makes my life easier and therefore I want it to displace clunky, confusing, and complex IT – this is CoIT.

This desire for mobility in the enterprise is also driving a second ideological change; enterprises and their IT staff want to must manage and secure digital assets in a mobile milieu. Since mobility easily breaks down and dissolves our traditional notion of a network, aka a fence, we are struggling to keep up with building new fences that keep everything properly corralled. Every time we think we have the right size fence, mobility busts through and we chase on after it. It is precisely because of this that we have the second half of the alphabet soup – MDM, MAM, MIM, EMM. At first we thought we could just corral the devices – MDM, then the apps – MAM, then the data – MIM, and so on. We have to keep setting the posts further and further out.

I do think that precise definitions are important, but expecting everyone to be on the same page with terminology for a paradigm so new is not practical. For better or worse, most people have connected BYOD with the desire to have our mobile devices at work and MDM to represent the need to manage the aftermath of that desire. The job of those of us who have a higher than average interest in the industry should be to first, focus on guiding enterprises in the most efficient and cost effective way to meet the desire for mobile devices in the enterprise and second, help identify all security threats so that enterprise management vendors can build the correct fence(s). I think constructive debate around these motifs is healthy and worthwhile. We should share what we know of success and failures. We should be at the forefront of recommending best practices. We mobile champions should work together to bring this new compute paradigm to maturity.

*Acronym Key

• BYOD – Bring Your Own Device
• CoIT – Consumerization of IT
• MDM – Mobile Device Management
• MAM – Mobile Application Management
• MIM – Mobile Information Management
• EMM – Enterprise Mobility Management

Benjamin Robbins is a Principal at Palador, a consulting firm that focuses on providing strategic guidance to enterprises in the areas of mobile strategy, policy, apps, and data. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.

Enterprise Mobility – Data in the Driver’s Seat – Part I

This is Part I of a two-part series on the importance of data in an enterprise’s ability to effectively enable mobility for users. The first part covers the necessity of a solid data management foundation and the second will explore how that foundation drives the app ecosystem.

Besides email, can you name your three most valuable data sets in your organization? If a new data set is created do you have a process to bring it under management? Do you have audit capabilities? Do you know who is accessing your data sets? When discussing the various popular topics of enterprise mobility such as BYOD, Consumerization of IT, Mobile Device Management (MDM), and Mobile Application Management (MAM), the topic of security – especially data security – is always top-of-mind. The idea that one of your most valuable corporate assets is potentially running around on insecure devices is enough to induce a panic attack for many IT professionals.

A lot of mind-share has been devoted to the idea that data, not devices, is of paramount security and management importance to enterprises. Lost or stolen data represents the greatest risk to your organization with mobility. Mobile Information Management (MIM), as a technological solution, is seen as a pinnacle of enterprise mobility management. While I subscribe to the idea that MIM is the desired destination for mobility management, MIM must sit firmly atop of the best practices of data governance. Data governance is often assumed but not discussed or, at best, only briefly mentioned. It is a practical house-keeping exercise that, while mundane, will produce the optimal atmosphere for the success of Mobile Information Management. Data governance is the idea that data is formally managed in an enterprise and adheres to a life-cycle process as would any physical asset in your business. The idea of data governance seems almost too obvious and simple to bother to discuss, but I am always amazed at the number of organizations that I help advise that have very limited data governance practices. Perhaps it is the seemingly ever-changing nature of data. Perhaps it is due to rogue data creation. Perhaps it is just sheer laziness. Whatever it is, mobility presents an opportunity to only compound the effects of poor data governance. That is why this is so important to raise as an issue. Mobility represents another technology layer for access, consumption, and creation of data. Without the proper data governance processes in place, organizations are at risk of piling additional complexity on top of an already lacking process. This will only create more opportunity for data dispersion and exposure risk.

Data governance should be approached as a process issue and not as a control issue. It is far too easy for users to create their own data sets. This is exacerbated further with the services available to users through mobility. If you create a process that works for users rather than against them, your chances of success are greatly increased. Where data resides and how it is conceived might change, but a robust process will be flexible enough to adapt to these changes. This doesn’t need to be an over complex, heavy-handed process. Communication and education are your best and primary tools. Your goal shouldn’t be how to tightly control data but rather developing a network of those who take an active part in ‘owning’ and curating the data.

If you currently lack any process for data governance you could easily begin with performing a high-level data inventory – better to start simple than have nothing at all. A simple data inventory consists of:

• A central record of all data sets
• Who currently ‘owns’ it
• Should it be backed up

There are many more elements that one could collect but this basic data inventory will get your organization to a baseline. Once you have this baseline established you can begin to collect more refined attributes, but more importantly, develop process and community around adds, edits, and deletes to data.

It is most important to remember that a technical solution is a poor substitute for a process. Mobility has activated our imagination and allowed us to see just how easy access and exposure of data has become. It has jolted our senses and brought data security to the forefront of the mobile discussion. But, MIM, as it is often discussed in the public sphere, is a solution and not a process. Its effectiveness is heavily reliant upon good data governance being firmly in place. MIM should be the technology applied to a well conceived process. Technology will never be the solution to bad process. When it comes to your data this is no exception. How good of a handle do you have on your data? Where do you think the process could be improved? Do you think that data governance is overkill? Post a comment and let me know what you think!

Benjamin Robbins is a Principal at Palador, a consulting firm that focuses on providing strategic guidance to enterprises in the areas of mobile strategy, policy, apps, and data. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on LinkedIn.

Good Technology – Securing the Enterprise App Ecosystem

What can an enterprise do once there is the realization that mobile security is more than just managing devices? This was the topic at hand in my discussion with Suzanne Dickson, VP of Product Marketing, of Good Technology at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Dickson and the people at Good Technology know a thing or two about enterprise mobile security. Good Technology’s services are used by major organizations, including 50 of the Fortune 100 as well as enterprise customers in 90+ countries operating on over 200 carriers. This has provided them the opportunity to gain a lot of insight into enterprise mobile requirements.

“The market is still very early in understanding the potential security threats,” Dickson stated. “A lot of security issues are done by users losing data inadvertently,” she continued. Dickson acknowledged that this can happen simply because users share data from the device that they are not supposed to. Dickson went on to state that “there is a misconception out there that if I have device management then my data is safe.” Enterprises are slowly moving away from this line-of-thinking and Good Technology believes it is positioned well to be able to help them respond to the much broader threat landscape.

So what does this broader threat landscape look like; where are the additional security gaps that need to be plugged? Dickson believes that part of their job is educating customers about these threats. One area is through the applications itself. “With application development, you could develop an app and rely on traditional VPN for data security,” Dickson said. But she doesn’t view that as a robust solution. “Companies may think they are safe until an [security] event happens – this is a big disconnect.”

But Good Technology is working closely with customers and partners to stay ahead of this event. One particular area, Information Management, is where Dickson feels they are on solid ground is with their Good Dynamics product. Good Dynamics is a mobile application platform for developing secure applications. Good Dynamics-enabled mobile applications are wrapped in a secure container. This enables clean separation between enterprise data and employees’ data on their mobile devices.  Managing the information is a key component to the future of enterprise mobility for Dickson.  “Information management is where it gets exciting. It doesn’t matter where the data is, whether your phone or desktop,” she said. “How you secure the data regardless is what gives you the flexibility to have that data located anywhere.”

With Good Dynamics securing enterprise data is done through partnerships. By partnering with apps and services such as Box, Quickoffice, and Roambi, Good Technology is able to assure customers end-to-end control of their valuable assets. And as with many trends in mobility this is being driven by the consumer. “We are hearing from partners that clients are telling them they can’t use their app until it is secure,” she recounted. This consumer/client driven approach is also pushing Good’s product roadmap as well. As Dickson said “part of the benefit that we have of working with early adopters is that they are pushing us to new directions and capabilities, especially on a global level.”  This insight is a key strategic advantage not only for Good Technology but also as something that is passed on to their clients. “Our fundamental promise and focus is on security. We believe a lot of the growth [in the enterprise] is in the number of applications and we want to allow people to build those applications securely and cost effectively.”

About Good Technology

Good Technology combines award-winning enterprise-grade mobile security and control with an exceptional user experience, allowing enterprise and government employees to connect, communicate, and collaborate on iPads™, iPhones®, Android™, Windows Phone and other leading smartphone platforms. Good opens new possibilities for maximizing business and personal productivity by providing secure, easy-to-use, and instant mobile access to email, collaboration, application, document editing and device management capabilities on iOS and Android devices. Good also enables secure mobile application and secure, custom social media platform development. Discover more at www.good.com.

Nukona brings Mobile Information Management to the Enterprise

I stopped by the very busy Nukona booth at CITE and got a chance to catch up with their CMO, Brad Murdoch. Nukona, as of last Thursday, has introduced Mobile Information Management (MIM) into their platform. This is fantastic news for those of you who are following the evolution of mobile devices in the enterprise as MIM is the next logical step.(see also Brian Katz’s coincidentally timed post on MIM)

Nukona’s Mobile Information Management functionality is currently limited to viewing content such as PDF’s and videos (sorry no Office docs yet), but it does so in the same secure container that the apps run under. Best of all, it does so in the same container that apps are managed under. This means that you can dynamically apply policies to documents the same way you can apps.

Nukona’s MIM functionality has lots of room to grow, however this is definitely a step in the right direction for enterprise mobility. You can expect to see some great additional features in this area in the future. Nukona offers a free version -so you have no excuse to not check it out: http://www.nukona.com

Here is a screenshot:

VMware Assembling a Complete Picture for Enterprise Mobility Management – MWC12

I want to give you a sneak peek into my conversation with Ben Goodman, Lead Evangelist for VMware horizon. VMWare has some exciting stuff going on in the area of MDM (Mobile Device Management), MAM (Mobile Application Management), and MIM (Mobile Information Management). This is a topic that I know many of you are very interested in, so I will devote some longer pieces to it – post Mobile World Congress 2012 – because it is worth going into detail on. So here is a taste. Goodman, working in conjunction with his team at VMware, is approaching the issue of Enterprise Mobility Management with a broad and visionary approach. It is visionary in the sense that they understand that the end game for managing enterprise mobility, from and IT perspective, requires not only device and app management, but also people/information management. Goodman relayed how VMware’s Horizon application provides users a seamless experience on different platforms (mobile, pc, laptops, etc.). Users are able have one log in and one place to go on any platform for all business application access and content. Couple this with VMware’s products that provide the ability to perform device and app management and you have a very complete enterprise mobility management platform. Look for lots more on this in the weeks to come. (Thanks for Brian Katz for the introduction!)