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.

Fromdistance have announced the addition of support for Android 2.x devices to their Mobile Device Manager device management solution.

The client is available for download from http://mdmclient.net

You can read more in the official press release - http://www.fromdistance.com/en/pressreleases/press_release_MDM_20100331.pdf

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
  

Fromdistance (www.fromdistance.com) is a Finnish company which develops a comprehensive device management solution for Symbian (S60, S80 and UIQ), Windows Mobile (5, 6 and 6.1) as well as Windows (XP and Vista): Fromdistance MDM (Mobile Device Manager).

In this article I shall focus on the features available for the Symbian platform.

Features

MDM uses the standard OMA-CP (Open Mobile Alliance Client Provisioning) protocol to send ‘silent’ configuration messages to supported client devices via SMS.

FromSMS (www.fromsms.net) is a free utility provided by Fromdistance (www.fromdistance.com) that enables you to send SMS text messages from a web application quickly and cost-efficiently, via a Symbian S60 mobile phone.

All that is required is the FromSMS client installed onto your Symbian phone, and a connection to the Internet. The FromSMS client will register against Fromdistance's middleware server using a unique account code issued to you when you install the client.