Channel can take the mobile high ground with UEM

The pressure on those aiming to help users secure mobile devices is intense with the need to react to regular updates and emerging threats, but those that have kept up with the market should now find opportunities to help customers looking to increase staff and data flexibility as part of a digital transformation strategy.

The speed of change in the mobile market has caused some to leave the market and had meant that those who have stayed have held onto their position thanks to significant investments in R&D.

Over the past few years there has been the mass arrival of the smart phone, BYOD and now digital transformation, which have all put those in the IT department looking after the mobile network under strain.

From a channel perspective there has been plenty of opportunity and the positive news is that just at a time when it looked like the MDM market had seen all the life commoditised out of it the smart partners have shifted to pitching Unified Endpoint Management (UEM).

Ojas Rege, chief strategy office at MobileIron, has seen the market evolve and from the start the vendor has been keen to work with the channel.

He has welcomed the arrival of UEM because it puts more blue water between that proposition and MDM and hands the channel with plenty of chances to talk to customers about where the business is going.

"It takes you higher up the stack. There have always been companies that have given the MDM stuff away for free [but UEM] is about the larger enterprises and regulated spaces," he said.

Rege also holds the view that there is plenty of mobile transformation still left to be done by customers.

"Every organisation has accepted they have to do mobile," he added "No one transforms through putting email on a mobile. You need to remove all barriers to the flow of the data and give access to allow an individual to make immediate action."

"There are lots of implications for the channel and big money to be made. But it is important they have the right skills," he added that as well as tech there was a need for more consultancy around business processes.

MobileIron added its Authenticator offering to its Access cloud security solution earlier this week and Rege said that was one of the benefits of being able to plough funds into R&D.

"It involves a massive investment from a vendor. You need to have zero day support on a new OS from day one," he added "Security should not be an inhibitor to deploying mobile. Security challenges are solvable."