Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
“Bring your own device” (BYOD) is a new trend whereby companies allow their employees to bring their mobile devices (Smartphones or tablets) to work and allow them to be used for business purposes with access to company network and data. It’s a part of consumerization-of-IT wave that has started to gain serious traction in last two years. A recent survey has all the numbers.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/bring-your-own-device-becoming-accepted-business-practice-survey/63811
BYOD benefits:
1. Employees are more comfortable in using the devices of their choice. They don’t have to use two devices anymore, one for personal and one for business work.
2. With BYOD program in place, companies can avoid making investments for purchasing the devices. E.g. a company with 100 employees will usually spend $400 per Smartphone or tablet with a total cost of $40K. All that cost is now saved and so is the overhead and additional cost of commissioning, asset tracking and maintenance of the devices.
BYOD challenges:
1. With BYOD, Employees are going to store personal and business data on a single device. It is a challenge to ensure that the business data is protected.
2. Companies need to make sure that the devices are secure i.e. password policies are applied and data encryption is enabled. Normally users are not careful with their personal devices but companies cannot afford risking loss of business data in case the phone is lost or stolen
3. People tend to change gadgets as soon as something new and fancy is available. Employees will be upgrading to newer devices faster than ever. IT department has to make sure they keep themselves updated with new technology trends to ensure compliance goals are continually met. IT needs to move faster than the employees. Good Luck!
Above challenges can be alleviated to a large extent by using mobile device management tools (MDM). Overall cost for deploying these solutions is much lower than the cost of the devices.
Where BYOD won’t work?
BYOD model does not work in all cases. Some businesses want to super-secure the devices and restrict employees to use only certain applications or want the worker to access only a particular website on the device and nothing else. Of course the employee would want to have the freedom to play Angry Birds or browse news website once in a while on her “own” device. In such cases it’s better to provide a company owned devices to the employees.
Conclusion
BYOD is a new trend that has gained deep inroads into the financial services sector and looks promising to hit other domains as well. It could be beneficial to both employees and the employer. A well thought IT strategy around policy-based deployment, security, and management of “personal” devices is a pre-requisite for rolling out the BYOD program.
Lets us know what you think about BYOD. Will it work?
42Gears Mobility Systems is a leading vendor of mobile device management and security products. To know more about our game-changing approach to mobile device management visit http://www.42gears.com.
Kiosk Mode on Android with SureLock
SureLock for Android has been released. Trial version is available for download from our website as well as from the Android market.
Lock down android device into kiosk mode
Features:
* Lock down smartphones and tablets into kiosk mode
* Restrict users to allowed applications only
* Block users from accessing Home screen
* Block user from playing games, browsing or installing unapproved applications
* Block user from changing System Settings
* Admin can securely unlock the device with a password
Check out more details on our website at http://www.42gears.com/surelock/
Block users from running unallowed applications on Samsung Galaxy Tab 10
So your company has decided to give away tablets like Samsung Galaxy Tab to the employees for use for business purposes only. Well... you may be in for a surprise. As soon as they lay their hands on the tablets, the users are going to head straight to Android Market and start downloading cool free games and other applications. Soon the device will be full of useless applications resulting in performance degradation. Moreover if the tablet has a data plan, downloading such applications can cost you lots of money for data charges.
Android Tablets -> Unproductive Employees -> Unhappy Boss
SureMDM provides a very useful feature whereby you can remotely lockdown the android tablet (as well as android smartphones). Locking down means you can individually lock the installed applications and also disable the user from installing new applications. Whenever a user tries to launch a locked application, the user will be asked to enter a PIN (as configured by the administrator). No PIN is asked for if the application is not locked.
Android Tablets -> Locked by MDM -> Productive Employees -> Happy Boss
Use SureMDM to keep your employees productive which will surely make your boss happy. 
SureMDM client now available on Android Marketplace
SureMDM Nix agent is now published on Android Marketplace. You can search for "suremdm" on Android Marketplace or directly goto https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nix
and install it on your phones.
Android marketplace SureMDM Nix Agent page
Advantage of installing from android marketplace is that you don't have to enable "Allow installation of non-Market applications" to manage your device from SureMDM. Plus any upgrades we make to the software, automatically gets rolled into your devices.
To try SureMDM and to discover its comprehensive device management capabilities and easy to use interface, register for a free account at http://www.42gears.com.
New security feature for android device management using SureMDM
SureMDM adds another compelling security feature for android device management. IT administrators can now restrict users to access only approved applications.All other applications and system settings are password protected. This feature also blocks the user from installing any third-party applications.
Installed application list
Using this feature is very simple. Installed application list of a device now also shows which application packages are LOCKED. Administrators can select any package and LOCK/UNLOCK them from console. Once done, launching these applications will prompt for a password, failing which user cannot access the application.
Password prompt for locked application
To try android application lock down and tons of other SureMDM features, register for a free account at http://www.42gears.com.
Managing and controlling applications on corporate mobile devices
SureMDM now has a brand new feature that provides a view into what all applications are installed on the phone. Go to the SureMDM web console, select the phone and click the Apps button the toolbar. Whats more, you also uninstall any unneccesary applicaitons right from the web console even if the actual mobile device is out in the field.
List of installed applications on the phone
Application protection, application locking, software inventory reporting etc will be added in the next release.
Use SureMDM and take control of your corporate mobile phones. You can learn more about SureMDM at http://www.42gears.com.
Android and password policy enforcement using SureMDM
Enterprise use of Android devices is on the rise these days. Much of it is due to the availability of new security features (Android 2.2+) such as the ability to enforce password policies across Android devices and to remotely wipe any Android devices that become lost or compromised.
Suppose all employees in your organization have been given latest Android phones. Being the IT guy you are asked to make sure all those Android phones adhere to corporate security policies. If you have a few hundred devices to manage, applying password policies manually on them might not be a good idea. In fact it is a bad idea .
SureMDM provides a much easier method for applying password policies. You just have to create a Password Policy job. You can configure various parameters such as minimum password length, password quality (numeric, alphabetic, alphanumeric), time lapse before device auto-locks, maximum number of failed password attempts before device wipes itself.
Password Policy job in SureMDM
Once the Password Policy job is created, you can apply it at once on any number of Android phones. The job is pushed to all phones that are connected with the SureMDM server. Offline phones will receive the job when they connect with the server next time.
The password policy job is processed on the phone by SureMDM device agent that brings up Android password UI. The user is asked to set the password according to the password policy. If the user dismisses the password UI, it will be perodically asked for the same until the policy is complied with.
Conclusion
SureMDM provides an easy to use feature that helps IT teams to quickly apply corporate password policies to hundreds of Android phones across the enterprise. To try this and many other features register for SureMDM account for FREE.
Keeping track of “Under-Repair” mobile devices using SureMDM
So your employee has reported a problem with the mobile device (e.g barcode scanner not working, display is broken etc). Many times the device has to be sent to a service/repair center where thorough diagnosis and repair is performed.
How do you manage the device when it goes for repair. Most people don't have any solution and some use solutions that are very specific.
We understood this problem, worked on it and came up with a new feature that takes SureMDM to a new level. Now SureMDM is not just a mobile device management solution, it also provides complete device service and repair management functionality.
Mobile device repair
If an employee reports an issue with the mobile device the IT person can assign easily create a new ticket under SureMDM and drag the mobile device to the "Repair Center" bucket. The ticket consists of details about the problem with the device, fault code(s), name/address of service center where the device is going for repair, the person who reported the problem, date of reporting etc.
Once the device comes back from the repair, the ticket can be closed. Notes can be added while closing the ticket. Closing the ticket restores the device back to the group where it was earlier.
Mobile devices go for repair multiple times during their life time. SureMDM provides repair history of all the mobile devices. Management team can use this information to negotiate the maintenance contracts with the service or repair provider companies as they now know what their actual service needs are.
To try mobile device service and repair management and other features of SureMDM, register for a FREE account at http://www.42gears.com. You will be amazed at how easy it is to use.
Mobile device security threats you should know about
Mobile security threats
For most purposes smartphones today are almost as powerful as computers. There are now more phones in the world than the number of computers. Phones are being used by people to check emails, browse web, make online payments, download games, take pictures, track location and much more. Along with these powerful features we should also be aware of security threats that arise out of using smartphones.
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Data Security:
Data stored on SD card can be easily stolen by someone who gets access to the card for even a couple of minutes. Turn on SD card encryption to ensure that data can be read only by your phone. Proper and timely backup of data is also important practice.
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Location Privacy:
Phones today are equipped with features like GPS. There are applications that can tell your exact physical location to your friends and followers. This information can be misused by anyone (thieves, advertisers etc.) which can be harmful.
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Malware/Viruses:
Malware and viruses are malicious programs that can cause serious damage as they can be used by hackers to take control of your mobile devices and at worst steal your all important data such as business information, credit card details, passwords, personal pictures etc. Download and use programs only if you trust the source.
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Scams and Phishing attacks:
Ensure you are visiting the real websites and not the fake ones which look exactly like the real ones. If you get tricked you can loose lots of data, money or both. Be careful while clicking on the malicious links on websites. Recommendation: Always check for https at the start of the website link before you enter any sensitive data. Wearing your Sherlock Holmes hat might help here.
Register for free trial of SureMDM, cloud-based mobile device management solution from 42Gears Mobility Systems.