Kaseya Unveils Integrated, Automated Mobile Device Management

From a pure revenue perspective, the mobile device management (MDM) market is just starting to take off. But by all indications, it will be a gold mine, so Kaseya is joining the more than 60 vendors already staking a claim in this segment with an integrated and automated solution initially targeted at Apple and Android users. BlackBerry and Windows users may have to wait, but they will be included eventually, say company officials.

According to Gartner (Magic Quadrant for Mobile Device Management Software, April 13), although some of the more than 60 vendors and products have been around for a long time, MDM is a nascent market, and vendors' offerings have little consistency. From a pure MDM revenue perspective, (excluding revenue for messaging, security, and so on) year-end 2010 is estimated at $150 million, increasing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15% to 20% during the next three years.

Driving this market is the explosion in mobile connections, which will grow 11% this year to 5.6 billion, reports Gartner. Mobile data services revenue will total $314.7 billion in 2011, a 22.5% increase from 2010 revenue of $257 billion.

In the first quarter of this year, the wireless LAN market shot up 18%, reports Dell'Oro Group. While down on a sequential basis, the enterprise WLAN segment exhibited a growth rate of 22% year-over-year, reaching $573 million in revenues for the quarter, spurred on by growing acceptance of personal devices such as smartphones and tablets in offices.

Part of an integrated and automated IT System Management (ITSM) solution that handles the mobile device challenges of email configuration, back-up, asset visibility and security, the Kaseya Mobile Device Management (KMDM) module enables users to manage traditional and mobile endpoints from a single pane of glass. Expected to ship this quarter as a stand-alone application that can also be integrated with other applications in the Kaseya framework, KMDM 1.0 will support iPhone, iPad, and all Android-based smartphones and tablets.

Although he hasn't seen KMDM actually used, and has been told only what it can do, Stephen Mann, senior analyst, Forrester Research, says Kaseya's approach to MDM is different. Through MDM, users are "able to manage mobile devices from within the same IT management framework, and to the same degree, as desktops, laptops and servers, via cellular as well as IT networks. There are, of course, many other MDM solutions/services available (whether it be niche providers or discrete solutions from the Big 4), but Kaseya’s is worthy of note in approach as much as it is in breadth and depth of capabilities."

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