Android in the Enterprise

[Hatman]

Greetings,

I working in a large enterprise which is looking at expanding its short list of approved mobile devices. Currently, Blackberry is the device of choice. After Apple's latest round of upgrades, we are seriously considering approving iPhones and iPads for enterprise use. However, we would obviously prefer a path that could include other platforms in the future.

A number of people within the organization have noted the recent rapid growth of the Android platform and have identified this as the next most likely asked for addition for enterprise use.

My question to the Android community is, "What is still missing from the Android platform that it needs to be a contender (even dominator) in the enterprise market?" Remember the enterprise baseline is basically the BB platform with excellent enterprise device management, encryption, etc.

Looking for thoughtful comment, no flames please.

Hatman

 

[MrObvious]

I can speak more from the IT perspective. Blackberry would be less appealing to me now that they sold out to Muslim governments honestly because even though it only applies to those countries who is to say that the same thing wouldn't happen here with the government? Android does support Exchange and you can install mail apps like K9 and even encrypt it just fine. Mail would work beautifully .

 

[tony bag o donuts]

Ease of use.
I know my brother's company won't support android until Froyo, yet another company supports android and too many were getting confused with the OS.....Sense, Blur, Vanilla, etc.

 

[joeww]

I am responsible for Email architecture and evaluation of new devices to synch with Exchange. Our Security group will not allow an Android device into our company to synch with Exchange until full device encryption is available. Touchdown won't cut it because it does not encrypt the full device - including SD card.

If full device encryption were available I would be one of the iPhone4 users who would switch in a heartbeat.

 

[sklauda]

Look at a company called Good. It is a "sandbox" BES type of system. We are starting to use it and works very well.

 

[entmdm]

Enterprise MDM

This is a question that is coming up more and more in enterprise discussions. Many companies have many (1000's) of Blackberry, Symbian, iPhone, Droid devices and want to manage across multi OS's. iPad device management is a real focus for health care, pharma, finance, edu and retail next year.

 

[salujakbs]

7 years down the line, and Android has taken a huge chunk of the mobile device market today, both in personal and corporate segments. Businesses are increasingly using Android tablets and mobile devices to empower their on-field employees instead of using those Blackberries used in the past. Additionally, to maintain a better control and manageability of corporate resources on employee devices, businesses are investing in MDM software solutions, which ensures better security for corporate data and restrict any non-official use of corporate resources.