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21.11.2008
Mobile Device Management - Turning the Economic Disaster into an opportunity! |
The current global economic downturn contributes to growth in Mobile Device Management as enterprises are seeking innovative ways to cut down IT administration costs. According to IDC research the financial crisis hits mobile phone markets as 2008 third quarter shipment growth drops to 3.2%.[1] But as the downturn affects the amount of mobile phones being bought, there is still a global fleet of mobile devices that need to be managed.
It is unlikely that mobile phones are going to be replaced by anything as the ultimate communications medium anytime soon, and as such mobile phones are increasingly replacing desktop phones in business use as seen in a study by OnRelay.[2] Increasing business use brings many business applications into the mobile devices making maintaining the fleet of mobile devices in an economical manner one of the greatest challenges.
Mobile Device Management is actually an enabler for an efficient mobile office concept ? it is required to deploy and maintain the business applications in the mobile fleet efficiently.
With Mobile Device Management over-the-air (OTA), companies are able to achieve significant cost savings. When the mobile device is managed remotely, the device user does not have to physically take it to the IT administrator in order to have settings configured or applications installed and updated. Also, with Mobile Device Management over-the-air, several mobile devices can be managed simultaneously, which saves the IT administrator’s time considerably, compared to the manual administration of each separate device.
For example with Capricode SyncShield Mobile Device Management, IT departments achieve considerable savings. ?With centralised device management the organisations can achieve significant cost savings. We have calculated that the cost savings achieved with SyncShield Mobile Device Management can be even 50% compared to manual management.? says Mikko Huostila, a Technical Product Specialist from Sonera Piste (Part of TeliaSonera Group, the 7th largest mobile network operator with over 100 million subscribers).
The economic downturn also forces service providers offering Mobile Device Management to cut down costs. One lucrative approach is the Software as a Service model in device management, in which the service providers use centralised servers to manage multiple customers. This model reduces the requirements for customer specific server hardware investments, as customers can use the same virtualised environment of the Mobile Device Management solution independently.
In the midst of the crisis any activities that alleviate costs are welcomed and Capricode’s SyncShield has tapped into the niche section of Device Management by offering over-the-air Mobile Device Management (MDM) for businesses with Software as a Service model through its partner network, further reducing costs for the customer.
?By offering SyncShield MDM to customers using the Software as a Service model, our partners are even further facilitating cost reductions, hence aggressively rebutting the force of the Economic Crisis. This separates SyncShield very much into a league of its own!? says Jonny Kaarlenkaski, the Chief Executive Officer of Capricode.
Overall the benefits of Mobile Device Management over-the-air are evident in terms of cost savings to businesses; however by utilising new business models the efficiency, usability and convenience of Mobile Device Management solutions can be further increased. This paves the way for new possibilities in taking advantage of the economic downturns. As John D. Rockefeller has said: ?I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity!?
References
[1] http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS21500308
[2] http://www.onrelay.com/index.php?id=130
Download the press release in PDF from here!
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