MobileIron aims to overhaul smartphone management

MobileIron backs up device data centrally

MobileIron is bringing its enterprise smartphone management platform to Europe, promising a new data-centric approach that lets customers cut operational costs through greater visibility of assets, while allowing greater freedom of handset choice for end users.

The company will announce today the opening of its European headquarters near Amsterdam, coming out of stealth mode after several months of quietly building interest among corporate customers in Europe, the firm said.

Its data-centric approach to smartphone management is designed so that companies can allow staff to use a device of their choice, a development driven by the popularity of the iPhone over the last few years.

MobileIron's Virtual Smartphone Platform synchronises all data from employee handsets back to the datacentre, from where it is used to deliver services for end users, plus oversight for the IT manager and information on costs for the finance department.

"Our approach is that smartphones are computers. It’s about the data on the device, not just content, but activity and usage data, settings, location information and data on the network service quality," explained MobileIron chief executive Bob Tinker.

This data allows the telecoms or finance manager to monitor usage patterns, which can catch costly usage spikes and reduce network bills by ten to twenty percent, Tinker claimed.

For the IT department, MobileIron has the usual management features such as password enforcement, but it also supports the ability to draw a boundary between corporate and personal data, enabling a selective wipe if an employee that has been using their own handset leaves the company.

Keeping a copy of all device data also allows malware scanning to be moved to the back end rather than tying up resources on the handset, according to Tinker.

"Rather than run on the client, antivirus scans can be run on a clone of the data, and any necessary changes synchronised back to the user," he said.

MobileIron also provides policy-driven access control for ActiveSync, Microsoft's sync protocol that is increasingly used on other platforms for accessing Exchange email accounts.

For users, MobileIron allows self-provisioning through an Enterprise App Store, which is basically a catalogue of approved applications maintained by the IT department that lets users download from the appropriate source such as the BlackBerry App World.

Users can also find their phone using GPS and lock or wipe a lost handset, and search the datacentre backup of their data for calls and SMS messages long after they have been wiped from the handset, Tinker said.

MobileIron is typically deployed on a network appliance in the datacentre, but this can be physical or a virtual appliance for VMware environments, according to Tinker. It can also be hosted by a service provider and delivered as a managed service.

A client is also required for each handset, with Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian, Palm WebOS and Apple's iPhone already supported, plus Android support due in the second quarter of 2010.

MobileIron is licensed on a per-user per-month basis, costing from €3 to €8, dependant on the services customers deploy. Alternatively, customers can choose a one-time perpetual licence, which is subject to an annual maintenance fee.