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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.
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.
How much will these apps cost? Are they free? Are they free except you have to pay $$$ for the required analytics?
Who knows? They are meant for businesses, and they are made by IBM, and IBM is in it for the money. So significant amounts of money will change hands from customers to IBM, one way or another.
:-)
These are not web apps, these are proper apps. You know the apps that you need a PC for and not a toy tablet. Except they run on an iPad. You buy them and give them to your employees who use them for work. Which you can't do on a toy tablet. Except you can
I just checked. His parents said he could stay.
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!
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.
According to the IBM site, it means that the flight crew can rebook flights for passengers when they will be missing connections, etc.
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.