Securing mobile devices is essential. Even if mobile e-mail is the only application available to an employee, unmanaged mobile devices can represent a real security risk to the enterprise, since messages often contain proprietary or confidential data. Additionally, because smartphones and PDAs are small, they're easily lost or stolen, creating a major problem for security administrators.
Sure enough, security features are what distinguish these device-management products from one another. The ability to enforce passwords and remotely lock and wipe devices is table stakes. In our recent user survey, readers chose data encryption as the third most-wanted feature (just behind encryption of data communications and user authentication). While encrypting all data communications is best left to the likes of mobile middleware or VPN vendors, device file encryption is something we wish more MDM products would do. We also would have liked better support for locking down device hardware. When we brought this topic up with the vendors, they said a lack of standardization among devices (especially those powered by Windows Mobile) makes it difficult to universally lock hardware features like cameras or Bluetooth. We're not sure we buy this; we've seen products marketed in the mobile security arena that are tackling this exact issue in an easy-to-use, intuitive way.
All the products let you perform general security tasks with relative ease. However, iAnywhere and Nokia offer advanced features.
Sybase iAnywhere impressed on the security front in a few ways. First, iAnywhere is the only product to provide native file-encryption support in the device-management suite, and that's key. With iAnywhere, administrators can set policies to encrypt data, rather than wipe it, from devices in the case of failed password attempts or prolonged lack of communication with the device-management server--useful if, for instance, the device stays in a drawer and then is sold on eBay. When a device is wiped it must then be completely reprovisioned; simply encrypting data keeps it secure while obviating a complete wipe.
Nokia impressed us by providing a self-service portal for users to perform management functions. Rather than having to call the helpdesk every time a device is lost, Nokia's portal lets a user remotely erase PIM and e-mail data, hard-reset a device (resetting it to the factory default) or lock a device with a password. Considering the number of times devices in our lab have gone missing only to be found an hour later, we can see the benefit in off-loading some of the remote lock/wipe chores from the helpdesk. That said, administrators can certainly still perform these tasks.
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