For enterprises concerned with user authentication, the products from Nokia and Novell may present the best bets. While we were at times frustrated with Novell's implementation, which is based on the company's eDirectory identity-management system, it did offer some inherent advantages. Because users are derived from eDirectory rather than its own arbitrary user container, ZENworks can enforce passwords that draw from eDirectory--which can, in turn, pull from Active Directory. Intellisync also lets you pull user credentials from an Active Directory server. However, though both options tie user authentication to the enterprise-authentication structure quite well, the complex passwords often required by LDAP stores may diminish the user experience due to the small keyboards on smartphones (we fat-fingered many passwords during our tests).
App Deployment
Security isn't the only problem with unmanaged mobile devices: The inability to centrally administer devices and deploy mobile applications and patches means that those tasks become time-consuming. IT departments must conduct such operations manually, working on each device. A lack of centralized inventorying makes it difficult to audit software licenses and verify that users have the applications they need to do their jobs. This added workload for the IT staff weighs against the increased productivity (and, therefore, financial gain) that other departments enjoy from the use of mobile devices.
One of the greatest MDM features is the ability to deliver applications or updates down to your devices over a wireless network. Anyone in IT who wasn't under a rock this March was aware of the headaches caused by the U.S. Congress' decision to start daylight-saving time four weeks earlier than in the past. Desktops and servers weren't the only hardware affected: Microsoft, Palm, RIM and Symbian (the four leading mobile OS manufacturers) all released patches for their mobile platforms in the weeks leading up to the daylight-saving time switch date. While many phones weren't affected, because their clock settings are acquired from the cellular network, applications that rely on device-specific clock settings (such as Outlook) did require patches. Without a MDM system in place, IT administrators had to patch each handheld individually, rely on users to apply the patch themselves, or risk employees showing up to meetings an hour late.
All the systems we tested let administrators deploy applications over a wireless network from a central location. The software from Nokia and Sybase let admins distribute files as chunks (that is, a configurable number of bytes per synchronization). This is important for large updates; mobile devices operate with limited bandwidth (WAN connections offer anywhere from a few hundred Kbps to a little over 1 Mbps of bandwidth), and administrators may not want to have a multimegabyte update hog bandwidth. Complex installations also can be handled, including those that require dependencies (for example, not installing X unless Y is installed) or where installers need to be executed in a specific order.
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