Control freaks rejoice! SCMDM 2008 is here.
Well, the poll numbers are in and it doesn’t look good. 100% of respondents either have a PDA or really, really want one*. And it’s the Wild West out there with all of the different devices, the lack of control and every one of them wants into your network. Business factors demand choice and IT factors drive the need for security and supportability. Is there a compromise here?
Maybe, it’s calledSystem Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 (SCMDM 2008) and it gives you the following abilities if your devices are minimally Windows Mobile 6.1:
- Over 130 group policy settings specific to mobile devices.
- The ability to inventory (and view the inventory data in a single application console) every mobile device including their model, make and even which software updates they have received.
- Deploy both software and firmware using standard WSUS 3.0.
- Control which applications are allowed to run on the devices managed by SCMDM.
- Of course you have the favorites: Wipe-and-load, force PIN, etc.
If you want to provide even more security, you can couple this technology with Internet Security and Acceleration 2006 Firewall and Intelligent Application Gateway 2007. I’ll provide more information on these products in a follow up posting soon so check back.
For more information regarding SCMDM 2008, please see http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/enterprise/security.mspx
* Margin of error + or – 3%
Cheers!
