As PDAs become increasingly powerful and the need to access and store larger amounts of data rises, so does the need to secure that data. When deploying mobile devices and granting users remote access to local network resources, be it email, an intranet site, file shares or specific line of business applications, the administrator needs to know that those devices are doing so securely, will automatically lock themselves if left unattended and can be remotely wiped if they are suspected of being lost or stolen.

In this article I shall look at the foremost products available today, in the author's opinion, as well as the features that should be considered when evaluating a device management solution. If you are interested in knowing more, or have any questions relating to any of the information in this article, call Brightpoint today on 0870 849 0225.

Afaria is Sybase's device management solution for the Enterprise market, arguably the solution to choose if you need to manage a large fleet of remote devices running a variety of different operating systems and provide mobile integration with back-end line-of-business applications.

I have looked at Afaria in a previous article here - http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/sybase-afaria . In this post I shall look at the new features available in version 6.5 of the product.

With the release of Google's Nexus One handset, the Android platform has had a lot of publicity recently. Offering high levels of user-customisation, social networking integration and a 'desktop-like' mobile browsing experience, the device is very attractive to consumers...but is the operating system ready for the Enterprise?

What is meant by an 'Enterprise-ready' operating system? Ideally the platform should offer the features required by a mobile user as well as conform to the security policy defined by the IT department.

Excitor (http://www.excitor.com) is a Danish software development company specialising in remote device management and cost control solutions for the enterprise.
The DME Mobile Solution Suite is Excitor's modular framework that provides a feature-rich, multi-platform device management solution combined with state of the art security tools as well as an optional mobile email and PIM manager.

As PDAs become increasingly powerful and the need to access and store larger amounts of data rises, so does the need to secure that data. When deploying mobile devices and granting users remote access to local network resources, be it email, an intranet site, file shares or specific line of business applications, the administrator needs to know that those devices are doing so securely, will automatically lock themselves if left unattended and can be remotely wiped if they are suspected of being lost or stolen.

SOTI (www.soti.net) have been developing remote-control and device management solutions for the Windows Mobile platform for many years. At the time of writing their portfolio consists of three principle products:

• Pocket Controller - provides remote control, file sync, registry editing and screen capture / video recording direct from your Windows PC
• Pocket Controller Enterprise - aimed at helpdesk environments, provides remote control and diagnostic tools for over the air troubleshooting
  

The iPhone Configuration Utility allows the administrator to define common settings governing password policy, Server ActiveSync, certificates, wireless access points, VPN connectivity, LDAP access and more in a single configuration file and deploy those configuration settings to any number of iPhone devices.

Version 3.0 of the iPhone operating system is now available for download from Apple. This latest release of the OS brings several new features including MMS support, Copy & Paste, Search, USB tethering (modem usage), among others. But what about for the enterprise: will this latest OS make the handset more attractive to system admins who until now may have preferred Windows Mobile, Symbian or BlackBerry?

I have blogged about the EveryWAN Remote Support Personal Edition utility previously on the blog (http://blog.brightpointuk.co.uk/everywan-remote-support-personal-edition) - a free tool that provides extensive control over your connected Windows Mobile PDA directly from your desktop PC.

EveryWAN Mobility Manager is the big brother of this utility which is now available for a 30-day free trial from the developer's web site, Sparus Software - http://www.sparus-software.com/. This server-based application provides a complete solution for managing a fleet of Windows Mobile-based PDAs remotely.

The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) is a standards body responsible for developing and ratifying open standards for the mobile phone industry. OMA-DM is the device management protocol developed by the body for the remote management of mobile phones and PDAs.

The OMA currently manages a number of standards including:

• MMS - Multi-Media Messaging
• WAP - Wireless Application Protocol
• OMA-DS - Open Mobile Alliance - Data Synchronisation
• OMA-CP - Open Mobile Alliance - Client Provisioning