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Apple, IBM Partnership Yields First Results: 10 Mobile Apps
itwbennett writes IBM and Apple have unveiled the first results of the enterprise IT partnership they announced in July: 10 mobile applications aimed at businesses in six industries as well as government users. One of the apps, for example, allows a flight crew to personalize a passenger's in-flight experience. An app targeted at the banking industry allows a financial advisor to remotely access and manage a client's portfolio. And police officers can use iPhones to view video feeds from crime scenes with an app for law enforcement.
How about an app to manage all the new apps?
and that's all they've got?
software to sell more garbage in the first place?
at least google tried to change the form factor...
wtf?
wtf is going on in slashdot tonight?
wtf? where is all of this shit coming from?
Grindr for Execs?
How much will these apps cost? Are they free? Are they free except you have to pay $$$ for the required analytics?
... by the Syrian Electronic Army's javascript alert.
i agree you should focus on safety and security first so you choose to add androids. very sensible dude. I bet you like to put out unpatched XP boxes.
I'd say that if you are a sysadmin who somehow doesn't allow iPhones on any networks under your control, then within a week you will either have your mind changed or let go.
...iLotusNotes......
Run Away !
I just checked. His parents said he could stay.
Who cares? Is Dice taking slashvertisement money from IBM now?
You're the only one who sees those messages. If at some point they say that you should hurt yourself or someone else, please do everybody a favor and start a YouTube channel.
Like hell I'd allow an iPhone on my network
Strange, seeing as iPhone is one of the most manageable devices out there, second only to Blackberry and not by a very wide margin even then.
Not only can you push a wifi policy automatically for any BYOD iPhones that join your wifi to control network related policies, but managed (MDM) iPhones give you as much control over them as windows group policy does over windows desktops.
In fact the only one feature iPhone doesn't measure up on compared to Blackberry is app pushing over cellular. Since the discussion seems to be more about "letting them on the network" assuming wifi access isn't unreasonable, and removes that one limitation completely.
Has any progress what so ever been made with enterprise managing of android without any 3rd party solutions? As of the last android OS there was basically nothing to speak of, so I can't see them catching up these last 8ish years in just a few months.
Letting android on the network is about as secure as letting non-domain home windows systems on, so it is quite amusing you feel this is a better option!
What exactly does this mean "...allows a flight crew to personalize a passenger's in-flight experience. "???
...richie - It is a good day to code.
I agree with what you wrote above. And I say this as a long term Apple fan, but Samsung Knox + good MDM IMHO is probably ahead of Apple + good MDM in terms of security. So while it is true you need 3rd party tools you can at this point secure an Android (Samsung only though) much better than you can an Apple device.
For instance:
- Are these apps installed via a custom store, or distributed/managed using a internal company server? I'm assuming they don't exist on the Apple store -- or do they?
- Screen shots of the apps?
- Names of the apps?
As it stands it's pretty much a press release that's not really "news for nerds" ... 10 more apps is a rounding error of a rounding error of apps already in the App Store.
Do you happen to have any links to some free/low cost MDM ipad/phone solutions? When I last looked everything was rather expensive for a non-profit on a budget.
Have you seen Centrify's cloud service that supports MDM with iPhone and Samsung KNOX? Believe it's free to create a cloud tenant and enroll a device. http://www.centrify.com/products/saas-edition.asp
How many users are you talking?
IBM (old guys) wants the worlds most valuable and most popular consumer product company to crack into BYOD enterprises. SteveJobs built the most valuable company on the planet based upon CONSUMER from Day0 at AAPL. After being kicked out of Apple, SteveJobs turned focused on Enterprise with his NeXT Inc. venture. Ten years later NeXT had changed computing. It popularized O-O with Obj-C providing Soloman Inc. the tool and means to abstract financial instruments for trading bonds. That precluded WallSt. CMO's, Derivitives and electronic trading. NeXT enabled a CERN researcher to invent a better Gopher.app with a simple worldwideweb; www.app. Bill Gates even gave Steve $150 million to keep NeXT in business to avoid anti-trust but I digress. BUT that marked the definitive end to Enterprise for SteveJob's NeXT. SO it was SteveJobs intuitive understanding of everyday consumers that created Apple in the first place and upon his requested return its future success.
Apple's turning focus away from CONSUMER toward ENTERPRISE would mark a leadership milestone. A milestone SteveJobs would prove " Life after Death" by hurling back at Tim Cook rather than rollover in his grave.
I would say at least 40 devices.
IBM is not a fast company. This project happened really fast in just a few months. How did IBM find developers during a developer shortage and get these apps cranked out? I'd like to know more details about how these projects worked. Did they just slap an HTML5 front end on top of existing back-end code? These aren't trivial apps that show pictures of kittens. They're sophisticated. So during an acute developer shortage, IBM staffed up and cranked these apps out in months. Uncharacteristic of IBM to move quickly, and shouldn't it be impossible with a developer shortage?
Do you want your financial adviser accessing your data over a mobile app someone put together in a few months?
Knox is a complete joke and not good and by far not ahead of Apple.
http://androidcommunity.com/samsung-knox-security-solution-might-not-be-that-secure-after-all-20131223/
http://9to5google.com/2013/12/24/samsungs-knox-smartphone-security-system-could-be-breached-by-a-childrens-game-security-researchers/
http://mobilesecurityares.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/why-samsung-knox-isnt-really-fort-knox.html?m=1
I've been using Meraki MDM for a bit over a year now for managing my own devices, and have been quite pleased so far.
Sadly about a year back Cisco acquired them so there have been some changes in pricing and scope, but the free standard version is still available even if slightly hidden (most 'try now' links go to the enterprise signup page)
It now manages Cisco APs, Cisco switches, MDM, and a bit more random stuff.
Their main page is:
https://meraki.cisco.com/
MDM specific info is at:
https://meraki.cisco.com/solut...
Standard version signup is at:
https://meraki.cisco.com/form/...
Note that they now offer two versions, standard and enterprise. Feature wise they are pretty identical except for technical support.
Standard is free for up to 50 devices, then device 51 and after will run you $1/device/month.
I've no idea the pricing details on enterprise, other than the 30 day trial involves them sending you an access point that works with it. I assume even device #1 has a monthly cost.
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If you run Spiceworks, their latest major-version provides basic access to MDM for free through IBMs MaaS360.
They have a free version that adamantly doesn't have near enough features, and a paid version that is $3/device/month.
The paid version has all the features of IBMs branded version, but is a little cheaper per device.
http://www.spiceworks.com/free...
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If you want free and DIY, check out the "iPhone Configuration Utility" (mac/win versions available from apple) that let you create your own policy files - but you need to get them onto each iPhone "manually".
By manual this can be as easy as an email attachment or wifi-portal webpage download or something.
For devices you purchase and allocate to staff this is usually fine, but BYOD can be a problem without incentives for the user to install the profile themselves.
I used this method at work since I only had two profiles available then.
To get on the wifi network you needed to install our wifi profile, which grants access to the network and then enforces the network policy.
They didn't HAVE to install this policy, but then no wifi access at all.
I have a second profile to setup Cisco VPN client settings for users with VPN access, but my profile is more akin to a .PCF config (shared secret and IP stuff users don't need to worry about) and nothing else, so it just saves some typing for them. Not much arm twisting needed here.
http://theiphonewiki.com/wiki/...
(Download links at the bottom of this wiki, or just use Google)
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Sadly all other MDM platforms I evaluated over a year ago either no longer exist or in the 'rather expensive' category.
The list I used at the time for the higher end providers was
http://www.enterpriseios.com/w...
I found 2-3 good gems in that list at the time (Meraki and MaaS360/Spiceworks being the best priced then)
Might still be worth a look for you.
Thank you very much for this extensive write-up!
Well at that number. I'd think you could be at something like $5/user/mo pretty easily and if you hunt more like $3/user/mo. What kinds of bids are you seeing?
2013 articles are about a Knox1. They are also bunk. Knox provides the critical hardware components. The MDM provides the rest. Knox isn't meant to be a complete solution. The vulnerabilities are much further up the stack.
we are a very poor non-profit, so we go the free route where ever possible.
Well if you want free not cheap, then why care about cheap? Anyway Google free MDMs there are some out there.
Though as an aside if you are broke its hard to see what you are worried about losing in the case of a data breach.
...or be out of a job.
Though as an aside if you are broke its hard to see what you are worried about losing in the case of a data breach.
He said "very poor" not "broke". And you are a lot more vulnerable when you are metaphorically on the breadline, as relatively minor extra cost could tip you over the edge.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Understood. But its worth figuring out what the MDM is for. What are they guarding against? If there aren't assets what are they worried about being lost on mobiles? The additional cost of managing security is not low.
stop trying to make the companies top brass entertainment gadget of choice into a half baked, semi productivity device, its failing all over schools, according to IBM latest reports of many consecutive quarters without significant profit increase it seems to be willing to get in bed with just about anyone.
maybe the should consider changing the name to IBG ....International business Gimmicks
May want to examine why someones iPhone or Android is threat to your systems...fix your systems else exit 1.