Enterprise Mobile Management: Four Solutions

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Mobile device management is a major headache among IT managers at many enterprise workplaces. Helping solve this problem is something that vendors clearly see as a growth area — hence the four solutions detailed below.

There are many solutions out there from the mobile OS platforms, wireless carriers and third-party software vendors. Although some solutions have been around for many years, most are still evolving due to the wide range of today’s mobile devices.

Here are some open source solutions that stand out for their ability to provide data synchronization and device management functionality.

1. Funambol

Funambol provides a server for data syncing and device management, supporting the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) DM 1.2 and SyncML standards.

The server enables data synchronization (contacts, calendars, tasks and notes, media, files) between mobile devices, PCs, the cloud, back-end data sources, and clients like Outlook, Gmail and Facebook. It also supports push email to client devices. Since the data is synced in the cloud, end users can view and edit their PIM data via an AJAX web portal.

The Device Management (DM) functionality provides device management capabilities for a wide range of devices, specifically supporting 3G- and 4G-capable devices. Supported devices can include smartphones, residential gateways, USB data dongles, and mobile data enabled video cameras and even smart power meters.

This DM functionality enables bootstrap, configuration, control, update and monitoring of any OMA DM supported device. It can collect QoS statistics from devices and provide software provisioning. It also supports upgrading firmware over the air and remote locking and wiping in case of loss or theft.

The Funambol server can be installed on Windows and GNU/Linux platforms and is available in two editions. The open source Community Edition can be downloaded for free, as well as the clients. The Carrier Edition is available commercially and includes enhanced features and functionality, including scalability and high availability.

2. Zimbra

Zimbra is a traditional email and collaboration groupware solution that also supports mobile device synchronization. Although Zimbra offers a full-featured solution, the open source server has limited features and functionality.

Read the rest about enterprise mobile management at ServerWatch.