Mobile Device Management (MDM) has been with us only a short time – but it’s already just one piece of a larger set of required capabilities that are beginning to consolidate into the products enterprises really need.
I spoke yesterday with executives from telecom software and services vendor Tangoe. The history of this company traces its roots to telecom expense management (TEM), but recent developments in their overall product line (and note I cover only wireless and mobile, so I’m only discussing that aspect of their offerings here) provide services covering the “Big 4” (my term) of mobility management: mobile device management (MDM), mobile information (data) management (MIM), mobile application management (MAM), and, of course mobile expense management (MEM), all across both enterprise-owned and BYOD opportunities and a very broad range of devices and OS platforms. While the firm lacks an overarching marketing theme for all of this at this time (other than the general tagline of “COMPLETE Communications Lifecycle Management Solutions”) and instead sells all of these as separate products (and only 10-15% of their customers currently by everything), it’s easy to see how complete a mobility offering this is, and how, as is always the case, the Consolidation Principle is at work in this rapidly-evolving and vital space.
Just to review, the Consolidation Principle, a term I’ve used for about a decade, describes how innovations begin and often flourish as point products and even solutions – but as it becomes clear that a degree of commonality or opportunities for synergistic integration with other products exist, consolidation of function occurs. Thus MDM is an exciting opportunity (and, indeed, there are over 100 firms active in this space today), but by itself MDM is not a complete solution to the mobility management challenge. Other elements, as noted above, are required. And firms that offer these complete, integrated solutions are likely to become the leaders – until they, too, are perhaps swallowed by larger firms as the consolidation continues. Look at companies like SAP, Sybase, and Oracle – the depth and range of function offered by all is today pretty far from their respective roots.
I’ve not used Tangoe’s products myself, but I am encouraged by the trend here – expect mobility management to be a vibrant area for some time to come. And, while consolidation is obviously on the way, I’m also expecting that fundamental innovation in this space will continue as well. In fact, we’re today just reaching the point where all of this is getting really interesting.
