Lots of companies have their heads in the clouds when it comes to IT, and many are moving swiftly to move business technologies, even business-critical ones, there. One of the solutions that lends best to the cloud is undoubtedly mobile device management (MDM).
Relatively unchartered territory for the vast majority of SA businesses, having MDM there - in the cloud, that is - just eliminates the uncertainty, the complexities and the admin. It also costs less than buying the technology, the server to host it, and the resources to manage it. Choosing the cloud over on-premise means having an enterprise-class MDM without the enterprise-class outlay.
"A cloud-based MDM solution is probably the easiest and quickest way for companies to gain visibility and control of a plethora of mobile devices in the enterprise, whether company-owned or employees' personal devices. It's also easier to manage costs while enjoying access to qualified support.
"With so many companies still uninitiated on MDM, it just makes better business sense to go to the cloud," says Elna du Plessis, MDM channel manager at Securicom, which offers the world-leading Zenprise MobileManager as a cloud-hosted service to companies in Africa in terms of a partnership with Blue Turtle Technologies, which has the rights to distribute the technology here, and offers Zenprise as an on-premise solution.
Zenprise MobileManager is the first, holistic solution that allows companies to secure and manage the entire life cycle of the most comprehensive array of mobile devices, protecting the mobile enterprise at all levels, from devices, to mobile apps, to the network. It can be delivered as on-premise, public cloud, or in hybrid cloud deployments.
With over 10 years' experience in developing cloud-based IT security services, Securicom provides the ZenCloud that allows companies in South Africa to access Zenprise mobile management tools in the cloud.
ZenCloud is the industry's first enterprise-grade mobile cloud device management solution with a 100% uptime SLA. ZenCloud delivers the same secure, comprehensive, enterprise-grade mobile device management as the on-premise version.
ZenCloud is designed to protect the corporate network from a host of mobile threats, while enforcing security and other controls to protect information and applications stored on mobile devices in the enterprise's mobile environment.
ZenCloud is scalable and can safeguard hundreds of thousands of tablets and phones with a level of resilience and redundancy that hasn't been available before. From a Web-based console, the company administrator can perform device compliance checks; block devices if they are unmanaged, lost or don't adhere to company blacklist or whitelist policy; monitor network traffic and user behaviour; block disallowed apps; identify mobile threats and compliance violations; and enforce device security upgrades. Maintaining, upgrading and monitoring the solution is up to Securicom.
"The big plus of the ZenCloud is that it makes it quicker, easier and more financially viable for small and medium-sized enterprises to get a handle on mobile devices. With ZenCloud, we can have companies up and running with Zenprise within minutes," comments Du Plessis.
The demand for MDM solutions in South Africa has jumped dramatically. In response, Securicom and Blue Turtle have developed a partner model to ensure this rapidly burgeoning demand for strategic mobile solutions can be satisfied.
"We anticipate that the demand for cloud-hosted mobile device management solutions in South Africa is going to keep increasing as more companies scurry to implement a solution for managing mobile device threats," she concludes.
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