February 2012
Galvin Consulting, LLC EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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Key Considerations in Evaluating & Selecting a MDM Solution
As worldwide growth in the mobility market surges among both business and personal users,
organizations are seeking ways to monitor, manage and secure mobile devices, data and
applications. Security concerns among IT managers about sensitive data leaving corporate
environments have led many executives to investigate mobile device management solutions.
MDM vendors provide customers with a way to manage, secure, support and track mobile
devices throughout their enterprise. Typical functionality includes over-the-air updates; asset
management; support for applications; the ability to locate, lock, and wipe devices; policy
control and password management; device diagnostics and reporting; and security and
compliance enforcement.
A key driver of MDM growth has been the BYOD – Bring Your Own Device – and
consumerization of IT phenomena. As consumers increasingly bring smartphones, tablets and
other mobile devices into enterprise settings, they expect access to corporate networks and
support by enterprise IT departments. This, along with device and mobile operating system
fragmentation – particularly on Android-based devices – has overwhelmed IT managers and led
to greater interest in MDM solutions.
Due to the significant and accelerating growth in mobility, vendors have entered the mobile
device management market at a rapid pace to capitalize on the need to secure data and
devices. As a result, the MDM market has become crowded, with a mentality sometimes
referred to as the “Wild West.” Additionally, vendors from adjacent industries, including
mobile application management (MAM), are seeking to capture a portion of the mobility
market. In some cases, MDM vendors are partnering with complimentary firms such as MAMs
in order to provide a comprehensive approach to customers. MDM executives realize the
market is moving too fast to develop solutions on their own and emphasize strong partner
ecosystems.
The MDM market can be segmented in a variety of ways. When MDM vendors look at their
own market opportunities, they utilize both vertical and functional segmentation approaches,
targeting industries and line of business groups that are most likely to adopt mobile device
management solutions quickly and comprehensively. It is also common for MDM players to
segment the market based on customers’ size and rate of adoption.
When evaluating the MDM industry structure, there are two principal types of vendors: large
companies that offer mobile device management as part of a larger set of offerings and smaller
players who are primarily or exclusively focused on the mobile device management market.
Larger players are typically public, while smaller players are generally private and backed by
venture capital funding.
Mobile Device Management:
Key Considerations in Evaluating &
Selecting a MDM Solution
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Key Considerations in Evaluating & Selecting a MDM Solution
Mobile device management vendors provide numerous benefits for their customers, including
improved ROI/TCO, more efficient and productive employees, greater customer and employee
loyalty, and improved data and device security. These benefits are highlighted in the following
table and discussed in greater detail throughout the study.
Key Benefits Provided by Mobile Device Management Solutions
Benefit Examples
Lower TCO Reduce telecom expense
through telecom expense management programs
Lower provisioning costs
by provisioning devices OTA and remotely
Self-service portals lower
IT administrative overhead
Improved ROI ROI improvements include significant hard dollar
savings, totaling millions in
some cases
Soft ROI examples include greater productivity and
improved employee
morale
Mobile apps are driving significant ROI today and will generate even greater
ROI in the future
Reduce Complexity Customers can upgrade software on all devices
simultaneously
Solutions allow user self-service and administration
IT can restrict corporate devices to specific
versions or OS levels
Increase Security
Includes sandboxing, containerizing and
segmenting personal and corporate data
Application tunnels run from a container to an
enterprise back-end system
Document control provides time- and
location-based access to documents
Improve Employee Experience
Allow employees to bring and use their own personal
devices
Develop and deploy mobile applications that
create greater efficiencies
and productivity
Solicit and util ize stakeholder involvement
and testing
Reduce Liability and Legal Concerns
Devices can be tracked, locked and wiped if lost or
stolen
Departed employees no longer have access to
sensitive company
information
BYOD environments may restrict corporate l iability
to business data only
Increase Productivity
and Efficiency
Mobile integrations with
business system services, such as BI, ERP & CRM
Reduced duplication and
manual processes lead to greater effectiveness
Less down time and
“waiting around” generates higher sales
Improve Customer Experience
Tablet kiosks help drive greater engagement and
higher spend
Customers are more loyal and will ing to re-purchase
Data is more accurate and accessible
Improve Support Self-service portals fit new
end-user paradigm
Partner support provides
comprehensive assistance
Customers can choose
low-, mid-, or premium-level support contracts
Provide Greater Choice
Customers can choose on-premise, cloud/hosted, or
appliance solutions
Vendors offer platform and container offerings
Partnerships allow vendors to provide more comprehensive offerings
Offer Attractive
Pricing
SaaS and appliance pricing
offer reasonable per user and per month fees
Greater competition
within the MDM market has driven down all pricing
Some vendors offer
warranties or free support
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Key Considerations in Evaluating & Selecting a MDM Solution
Mobile Device Management (MDM) Market Overview Managing mobile devices is not new – since the introduction of
laptops, IT departments have had to manage mobile infrastructure to
keep track of employee usage of corporate assets. What has changed
is the complexity of multiple platforms, operating systems, device
types and applications.
This complexity is compounded by the BYOD and consumerization of
IT phenomena in which users are driving device choice instead of
control coming from IT departments in a traditional top-down
approach. Moreover, unlike laptops, when corporate applications
were essentially corporate email and users were primarily utilizing a
singular device – BlackBerry – the mobility environment today has
diversified into hundreds of different permutations.
IT executives cite security concerns as a primary reason for evaluating
and selecting MDM solutions. As more employees bring their mobile
devices to work, there are security implications in terms of device
management, information management, and file management, as
well as issues of overall information security and integrity if an
employee leaves the organization.
An approach some MDM vendors have taken in addressing security
concerns around mobile data is to adopt a container architecture,
while other MDM players offer a platform approach.
Container Approach: As the name implies, sensitive information
is put into a “container” or sandbox and managed within that
container. Typically, personal data in a BYOD environment is kept
out of the container so that any wipe of corporate data is clean
and does not disturb an end-user’s personal information, a key
legal consideration for many firms.
Platform Approach: Companies utilizing a platform approach
manage the device all the way down to the OS level. Vendors in
this category work closely with hardware manufacturers, including
handset and tablet manufacturers, to ensure they have access to
the APIs into which their systems will connect. These vendors also
stress their ability to provide a “native” user experience.
RESEARCH COMPONENTS CASE STUDIES
Tangoe Predicts BYOD Trends
Fiberlink on Fire
AT&T’s Focus on Mobile Security
Enterproid’s Divide
VENDOR PROFILES
Absolute Software
AirWatch
AT&T
BoxTone
Fiberlink
Good Technology
McAfee
Mformation
MobileIron
Motorola Solutions
SAP
SOTI
Syclo
Tangoe
Wavelink
Zenprise
TABLES
MDM Company Backgrounds
MDM Vendor Offerings
MDM Vertical Expertise
Vendor Approaches to Mobility Management:
Platform versus Container
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Key Considerations in Evaluating & Selecting a MDM Solution
Mobile Applications Driving Growth Mobile applications are driving much of the growth in the mobility
market, and MDM vendors are responding. MDM vendors offer
support for mobile applications from Apple’s iTunes and Google’s
Android Market, as well as private and custom applications.
Increasingly, customers are blending different types of applications to
meet their needs, such as on-device, thick client standalone, thin
client web-clip, and applications that are a combination of on-device
code as well as back-end database/back-end application server.
MDM providers are supporting these needs through innovative
combinations of technology.
Mobile Application Management (MAM) vendors have begun
entering the market, creating tension between their approach toward
application development, deployment and management and the
approach taken by MDM players. In other instances, MAM and MDM
vendors are working collaboratively through partnerships. We
explore the different strategies taken by the various players and how
this impacts both user experience and security.
We also examine the different stages of development among
customers with regard to application deployment. While some
customers have moved beyond basic applications to more advanced
capabilities, many companies continue to struggle with how to
manage all of the applications that end-users are putting onto their
mobile devices, including securing and provisioning the applications
and managing third party versus in-house applications.
RESEARCH COMPONENTS CASE STUDIES
Fiberlink: Applications in
the Cloud
MobileIron’s AppConnect
Helps Secure Enterprise
Applications
Absolute Software
Provides Secure Document
Access and Control
through AbsoluteSafe
Wavelink Stresses
Importance of Controlled
Application Rollouts
SOTI’s MobiControl Saves
Auto Glass Business
VENDOR PROFILES
Apperian
Bitzer Mobile
Partnerpedia
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Key Considerations in Evaluating & Selecting a MDM Solution
MDM Delivery Models Allow Greater Customer Choice While mobile device management has traditionally been offered as an
on-premise solution – a delivery model that remains a significant
portion of the MDM installed base – customers are increasingly
evaluating other ways of consuming MDM offerings. Vendors are
moving at varying speeds to provide alternatives:
Recent Offers of Cloud Solutions: Companies such as MobileIron,
Motorola Solutions, SOTI, Tangoe, Wavelink, and Zenprise have
recently added hosted offerings to their portfolios. In-depth
discussions with executives from these firms found that the cloud-
based segments of their businesses are growing at a rapid rate.
Cloud Solutions through Partnerships: Vendors such as McAfee,
SAP and Zenprise are offering cloud-based MDM solutions through
partners. In some cases, these vendors are also developing their
own cloud-based solutions as organic offerings through their direct
sales teams.
Cloud-only Offerings: Fiberlink and Mformation regard the single
option of a cloud-based solution as preferable to the combined
offerings of cloud and on-premise solutions. These firms believe
that the rapid pace of change within the mobility market, along with
the general IT trend to increasingly shift infrastructure from on-
premise to the cloud, makes cloud-based MDM a sound decision.
On-Premise-only Offerings: Good Technology believes that
delivering end-to-end security with consistent, government-grade
data encryption across all of its supported platforms and devices
requires an on-premise solution with a footprint behind the
corporate firewall and on the device, particularly when business
apps and data being accessed are based on on-premise systems.
We analyze and discuss additional paths vendors are taking to meet
customer delivery needs, including appliance offerings; perpetual
licensing; site, partial and full hosting; and managed services hosting.
Additionally, we address the deep and sometimes visceral differences in
vendor attitudes about the relative ease – or difficulty – in moving from
a single-tenant, on-premise architecture to a multi-tenant, cloud-based
architecture.
RESEARCH COMPONENTS CASE STUDIES
Mformation Highlights
Cloud Security
Zenprise’s Evolution from
On-Premise to the Cloud
SAP Offers Cloud-based
Afaria with Key Partner
Offerings
TABLES
MDM Vendor Delivery Options
MDM Pricing Models
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Key Considerations in Evaluating & Selecting a MDM Solution
Partner Ecosystem Critical to MDM and Customer Success In every interview with MDM executives, partnerships were highlighted
as a vital factor to MDM success and customer satisfaction. Partners
are essential to MDM players when MDMs are moving into new
markets or adding new technologies and services that may not be a
core competency. Partners also extend MDM vendors’ reach to
international markets.
Partners provide both horizontal and vertical expertise. Examples of
highly sought after vertical partners include those in fast-growing
mobile industries, such as healthcare and financial services.
Horizontally, MDMs are seeking out best-of-breed partners, such as
players with deep experience and relationships in mobile security.
Partnerships are detailed in the following areas:
MDM Partnerships with OEMs: MDM vendors are partnering with
OEMs to develop advanced functionality for feature-rich products.
MDMs are also pre-loading their software onto OEM devices,
allowing customers to purchase mobile devices bundled with MDM
products.
MDM Partnerships with Carriers: Carriers are important to the
MDM market, as they expand MDM vendors’ reach into the
carrier’s customer base, as well as scale down to lower segments of
the market that may not typically be targeted by MDM players.
MDM Partnerships in Adjacent Industries: MDM players have
structured partnerships with technology vendors, software services
companies, managed service providers, mobile application
management vendors, mobile enterprise application platform
players, value added resellers, and system integrators.
MDM vendors also rely on partners to provide a variety of support
services, including international support, system support, Tier 1 help
desk support, application development and deployment, and
installation and configuration assistance.
RESEARCH COMPONENTS CASE STUDIES
Good Dynamics Promotes
Secure Application
Development through
Partnerships
Syclo’s Tiered Partner
Structure
Motorola Solutions: Plug-
In Partner Model
BoxTone and 3LM Partner
to Provide Secure Android
to Security-Conscious
Customers
AirWatch Scales with
Global Customers
MDM Partnerships:
Critical to Future Success
TABLES
MDM Technology Partnerships
MDM Geographic
Coverage MDM Support Offerings
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Key Considerations in Evaluating & Selecting a MDM Solution
Mobility Experts Provide Advice for Evaluating and Choosing a Mobile Device Management Solution
In a crowded market with MDM vendor functionality that appears
undifferentiated in the eyes of many customers, how can IT managers
decide upon the best “fit” for their organizations? What are the critical
issues enterprise IT managers should consider when evaluating MDM
solutions?
We asked these questions to MDM executives, and they provided
insights on key strategies customers should employ when considering
and selecting an MDM provider. We discuss these recommendations
and others in greater detail within the report:
Consider MDM as a Long-Term Strategy: Customers should ensure
that they are taking a long-term view of their mobility deployments
by preparing for different market scenarios, including multiple
devices and platforms that may be introduced, or that may
disappear.
Determine Vendor Support for Heterogeneous Environments:
While most top-tier MDM providers support a range of mobile
operating systems, device fragmentation necessitates that
customers inquire about specific MOS levels supported across the
various platforms.
Determine BYOD Strategy: Customers who have not already
decided on a BYOD policy need to do so soon. Otherwise,
employees will make this determination for them.
Put Corporate Policies and Business Needs Ahead of IT Tools:
MDM executives stressed the importance of putting corporate
policies and strategies ahead of devices and MDM software so that
MDM solutions are aligned to the customer organization, and not
vice versa.
Understand the Needs of Business Units: Organizations need to
understand not only the requirements of the IT department, but the
critical business needs and processes that individuals use with
mobility and mobile applications.
RESEARCH COMPONENTS
TABLES
Considerations for
Implementing Mobility
Policies and Procedures
Sample Reimbursement
Policy Matrix
Mobile Device
Management Industry
SWOT Analysis
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Key Considerations in Evaluating & Selecting a MDM Solution
INTENDED AUDIENCE FOR THIS REPORT
Key Considerations in Evaluating & Selecting a MDM Solution serves a growing audience of IT
managers within medium-to-large organizations who are considering the deployment of mobile
device management solutions within their organizations. The report:
Highlights the core capabilities provided by top-tier MDM providers, the benefits MDM
solutions provide, and the innovative ways in which mobility is being used within
organizations today.
Presents comprehensive and detailed recommendations for the types of issues IT
executives should consider before and during their discussions with mobile device
management vendors, highlighting key questions and capabilities prospective customers
should raise to discern whether a specific solution is a good “fit” for their needs.
o Mobile device management vendors, while outwardly similar, offer distinctive
solutions tailored to specific markets.
Provides recommendations about internal policies and procedures that will aid in
organizations’ long-term mobility success, helping to prevent avoidable mistakes that
organizations new to the industry may encounter.
Provides assistance to customers who may be considering adjacent mobility players,
such as mobile application management vendors – either in addition to or in place of
MDM solutions. Through in-depth discussions with these market players, we present
the similarities and differences in their approaches to mobility management.
HIGHLIGHTED ORGANIZATIONS
This report features information from in-depth interviews with leading mobile device
management providers, as well as emerging mobility players . Customer and partner interviews
were also conducted to provide additional perspectives on the market. Case studies and
company profiles highlight the innovative work being done in the mobile device and mobile
application management markets by a variety of players, including:
3LM, Absolute Software, AirWatch, Apperian, AT&T, Bitzer Mobile, BoxTone, Coldwater Creek,
DynCorp International, Endeavour Software Technologies, Enterprise Mobility Strategies,
Enterproid, Fiberlink, Good Technology, McAfee, Mformation, MobileIron, Motorola Solutions,
Paragon Development Systems, Partnerpedia, SAP, SOTI, Syclo, Tangoe, Verivo, and Wavelink.
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Key Considerations in Evaluating & Selecting a MDM Solution
ABOUT GALVIN CONSULTING, LLC
Galvin Consulting publishes syndicated research on mobile technology, including Smartphones
in the US Enterprise and Transforming Healthcare through mHealth Solutions. Additionally,
Galvin Consulting has supported direct clients and mid-tier research firms on custom market
intelligence and primary research projects. Analyst expertise extends from mature hardware
and software technology to emerging markets.
Through in-depth analysis and ongoing conversations, Galvin Consulting has developed
relationships with global subject matter experts and industry influencers. Deep connections
with technology professionals put Galvin Consulting analysts in close proximity to the tactical
and strategic information end-clients seek. Galvin Consulting researchers have a highly tuned
perspective on the integration of technology within corporate enterprises. They also
understand the vertical application of technology within a given industry by virtue of
interviewing key technology consumers.
Galvin Consulting research includes market trends, drivers, segmentation, industry dynamics,
market direction, pricing/cost analysis and SWOT analysis. Additionally, Galvin Consulting
frequently includes competitive analysis, feature/functionality analysis, financial health, and
gap analysis. Customer satisfaction research is an additional core competency, including
win/loss analysis and customer satisfaction research.
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Key Considerations in Evaluating & Selecting a MDM Solution
METHODOLOGY
Primary and secondary research for this study took place during October 2011 – January 2012
and included interviews with IT executives from mobile device management vendors, mobile
application management companies, and mobile enterprise application platform vendors.
Additional participants included IT enterprise customers, partners, and subject matter experts.
Report contributors included company presidents, CXOs, VPs, senior and executive directors,
and senior managers. Participants were represented from marketing, engineering, business
development, communications and corporate strategy and provided both tactical and strategic
feedback regarding their organization’s mobility technology. In-depth face-to-face and
telephone interviews were conducted with approximately 60 mobility executives during the
research process. Research also included participation in webinars and online forums, as well
as live discussions at industry events.
LICENSE
Copyright © Galvin Consulting, LLC. Some rights reserved. Licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 License. Any reuse or remixing of the work must be attributed to Galvin
Consulting, LLC.
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REPORT INFORMATION
Length: 186 pages
Tables: 16, some listed in this executive summary
Case Studies: 19, some listed in this executive summary
Delivery: Electronically as a PDF document
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Key Considerations in Evaluating & Selecting a MDM Solution
DISCLAIMER Galvin Consulting believes the information contained in this report is reliable but, due to the
dynamic nature of the mobile industry and the market research process, we cannot guarantee
that it is accurate or complete and it should not be relied upon as such. Opinions expressed a re
current as of the date of this publication. The information, including the opinions contained
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CONTACT INFORMATION Galvin Consulting, LLC Seattle, WA
Telephone: 206.347.7552 Email: [email protected]
Web: www.galvinconsulting.net