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BYOD could drive more MDM-focused mergers and acquisitions
The recent announcement of an MDM partnership between Siemens Enterprise and AirWatch is a sign of things to come.
By Zeus Kerravala on Fri, 11/30/12 - 10:43am.There's no hotter IT initiative today than "bring your own device." A recent survey ZK Research conducted shows that 82% of organizations now in some way support the use of consumer devices in the workplace. This is a marked difference from just a couple of years ago, when very few organizations supported it. For those companies that do not support it yet, get ready because the heat’s going to come from above your pay grade and it will be your CEO who says "I don’t care what our corporate policy is, make this iPad work."
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This is one of the reasons mobile device management (MDM) has been such a hot market over the past few years. MDM enables the safe on-boarding of devices into the corporate workplace. It ensures that the device adheres to corporate security policies, drops certificates onto the device and configures the device automatically. Generally, a good MDM solution can reduce provisioning time from hours to mere minutes.
However, once the device has been on-boarded, then what happens? Sure, the user can do the normal things like browse the web or check email securely, but that doesn’t fully leverage the capabilities of the device. Many workers want to be able to collaborate more effectively using their consumer devices. Tablets, in particular, are much more effective collaboration tools than laptops when a worker is mobile. I believe this was the primary motivation behind the announcement made by Siemens Enterprise Communications and AirWatch. Siemens Enterprise is one of the leading UC vendors; in fact Siemens’ OpenScape product was really the first true UC solution available. AirWatch is one of a handful of MDM solution providers that offers both a premise- and cloud-based solution.
The combination of the two enables customers to address the pre and post on-boarding challenges of BYOD. Customers can use AirWatch to deploy, manage and secure consumer devices, which are mostly pre on-boarding events. Then AirWatch can provide application management support for Siemens Enterprise to customers to more easily deploy the necessary mobile UC and web collaboration solutions.
Through the partnership, Siemens Enterprise will introduce AirWatch into its channel through a referral program, which gives Siemens Enterprise one of the best MDM solutions on the market and provides AirWatch with an enormous channel for its products. The customer gets the benefit of a simplified deployment, making this a win for all parties involved.
As more companies adopt BYOD, I expect to see more MDM partnerships and M&A activity. This should make for an interesting 2013.
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- About Network Intelligence
Zeus Kerravala is the founder and principal analyst with ZK Research. Kerravala provides a mix of tactical advice to help his clients in the current business climate and long term strategic advice. Kerravala provides research and advice to the following constituents: End user IT and network managers, vendors of IT hardware, software and services and the financial community looking to invest in the companies that he covers.
Kerravala does research through a mix of end user and channel interviews, surveys of IT buyers, investor interviews as well as briefings from the IT vendor community. This gives Kerravala a 360 degree view of the technologies he covers from buyers of technology, investors, resellers and manufacturers.
Kerravala uses the traditional on line and email distribution channel for the research but heavily augments opinion and insight through social media including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Blogs. Kerravala is also heavily quoted in business press and the technology press and is a regular speaker at events such as Interop and Enterprise Connect.
Kerravala remains associated with Yankee Group through the company's affiliate program.
Prior to ZK Research, Zeus Kerravala spent 10 years as an analyst at Yankee Group. He joined Yankee Group in March of 2001 as a Director and left Yankee Group as a Senior Vice President and Distinguished Research Fellow, the firms most senior research analyst. Before Yankee Group, Kerravala had a number of technical roles including a senior technical position at Greenwich Technology Partners (GTP) where he worked with Johna Til Johnson, the founder of Nemertes Research. Prior to GTP, Kerravala had numerous internal IT positions including VP of IT and Deputy CIO of Ferris, Baker Watts and Senior Project Manager at Alex. Brown and Sons, Incorporated.
Kerravala holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.
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