HP and VMware Team for Cloud-based MDM

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HP, currently in the midst of splitting its PC and printer units from its enterprise IT divisions, has enlisted a big new ally in its bid to help businesses to manage and secure bring your own device (BYOD) environments.

EMC subsidiary VMware announced today that it has teamed up with the Palo Alto, Calif.-based IT heavyweight to enhance its HP Mobile Enterprise Services suite of mobile device management (MDM) offerings. HP entered the market for cloud-based MDM in April 2013, with a solution called HP Enterprise Cloud Services – Mobility.

Now, with the help of VMware’s AirWatch division, which was acquired on Jan. 22 for $1.5 billion, HP is making a play for enterprises struggling to manage multi-device user environments. AirWatch’s MDM platform has over 13,000 customers in 150 countries, according to company estimates.

In a statement, Chris Moyer, HP Enterprise Services CTO said the “partnership is about getting in front of the rising trend of employees bringing multiple devices to the workplace and enabling a safe, secure and productive environment for our clients to access and develop information sources.”

Sanjay Poonen, executive vice president and general manager of VMware End-User Computing, asserted in prepared remarks that the addition of the “VMware Workspace Suite to the HP Mobile Enterprise offering better positions customers to take advantage of emerging technologies in the mobile-cloud era.”

As part of the deal, HP Mobile Enterprise Services Management Essentials and Trusted App Access offerings will be supported by AirWatch platform. The cloud-based Management Essentials product allows businesses to jumpstart their MDM efforts without setting up on-premise servers or upfront investments in software. As its name suggests, Trusted App Access provides secure mobile access to enterprise applications with single sign-on support.

Despite the growing number of smartphones and tablets in the workplace, most businesses have yet to take a serious look at managing their workers’ mobile devices.

In potentially good news for MDM vendors, IT staffing specialist TEKsystems released a study last month revealing that 64 percent of North American IT pros don’t have a formal BYOD policy in place. More alarming is the belief among 72 percent of those polled that sensitive company data is at risk due to accessing it on a personal device.

“We believe enterprise mobility is one of the most rapidly changing aspects for IT, and our collaboration with VMware will better enable customers to modernize their workforce with HP mobile solutions,” concluded Moyer.

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Datamation. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.