MobileIron points channel towards MDM upgrade opportunity

The mobile device management market has evolved and is now happier going under the moniker of unified endpoint management but a sizeable number of customers are yet to catch up with the changes.

That legacy opportunity is one that MobileIron is encouraging its channel partners go after because the digital transformation trend, along with the ongoing need to secure devices, has pushed the issue up the agenda.

"There are some use cases that are around some of the old MDM infrastructures and we are bringing on new opportunities as well as the legacy MDM sales but there is a mixture," said David Critchley, regional director UK&I at MobileIron.

He said that as well as the general shift towards more up to date systems there had been some added market dynamics with some customers looking to move away from Windows to Android, that had also provoked a discussion around how those devices would be protected.

"Customers want to see more joined up thinking from their partners around the whole mobile infrastructure," he added.

Critchley said that workers were using more mobile apps and the vast majority of tasks could now be done on a smart phone or tablet and that raised the stakes because of the ongoing challenges with users leaving themselves open to threats.

Echoing the danger of the insider threat, research from SolarWinds and IDC highlighted the problems with staff being the weakest link remained the largest source of security incidents.

The firm found that close to 62% of respondents cited user errors as the top cybersecurity threat within the company and more than half pointed the finger at regular employees posing the biggest risk for insider abuse or misuse.

“Cybercriminals now operate as part of a well-oiled machine that can easily crank out a variety of attacks that are both random and focused in nature,” said Tim Brown, vice president of security, SolarWinds. “But in reality, an equally dangerous and even more imminent threat exists: internal users. Between mistakes and technology deployment misconfigurations, organizations are finding themselves highly susceptible to threats that are perpetuated from the inside, leaving themselves effectively wide open to attacks.”