IBM To Buy FiberlinkIBM To Buy Fiberlink

Another leading Mobile Device Management (MDM) vendor gets snapped up by a big player.

Showing yet another turn in the continuously evolving mobile device management (MDM) space, IBM announced this week that it will be acquiring Philadelphia-based Fiberlink for an undisclosed sum. Fiberlink is somewhat distinctive in that its offerings are entirely cloud-based, and its highly-regarded MaaS360 platform supports laptops as well as smartphones and tablets. IBM has its own MDM solution called IBM Endpoint Manager for Mobile Devices, which has consistently ranked below and behind Fiberlink in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. MaaS360 will become an integral element in IBM's MobileFirst initiative.

While many in the industry have tied the advance of MDM to the adoption of bring your own device (BYOD) initiatives, the real driver is the need to support a wider range of mobile devices accessing corporate email and other systems, regardless of who owns the actual device. For the moment, the majority of mobile devices accessing corporate systems are still company-owned, but IT departments still need to manage and secure those devices in the same way they did when "mobile access" meant a BlackBerry and a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES).

According to InformationWeek's 2013 Survey of Mobile Security that examined the mobile management practices of 424 IT professionals, 39% report having MDM systems in place and another 33% are planning to implement them in the next 12 to 24 months. In the meantime, 68% of respondents currently support BYOD in some form, and an additional 20% are developing BYOD policies.

While Gartner's Magic Quadrant for MDM Software identified more than 100 suppliers of MDM solutions, only a handful have hit the coveted Leaders quadrant led by AirWatch, MobileIron, Citrix, Good Technologies, SAP, and Fiberlink. Also making a showing in the "Visionaries" quadrant are Box Tone, Soti, Symantec, and IBM. Still, with 68% of organizations supporting BYOD but only 39% using MDM (or the newer term "Enterprise Mobility Management" or "EMM") solutions today, there does appear to be a significant opportunity for growth, and lots of vendors are looking to buy their way in.

The action started in earnest in 2010 when SAP acquired Sybase for $5.8 billion; John Chen, who was CEO of Sybase at the time, has just been named the interim CEO of BlackBerry. That valuation was based as much on Sybase's database products as on the Afaria MDM platform, though growing strength in mobility was clearly a driver.

In March of 2012, security specialist Symantec acquired two firms: Odyssey Software, which made an MDM solution that ran on top of Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM); and Nukona, a company that specialized in securing mobile data and applications.

Finally, in January of this year, Citrix acquired privately held Zenprise for an undisclosed amount. Citrix is apparently hedging its bets on the mobile front, as its virtual desktop integration (VDI) software allows secure mobile access without the need to install an MDM client on the mobile device.

The two "big plums" still hanging on the MDM tree are AirWatch and MobileIron, and possibly BlackBerry if they go through with the much-discussed strategy of splitting up the company and selling off the pieces. The big question is, "Who's around to do the picking?" Among the names that immediately come to mind are Cisco (which does have an MDM play of sorts through its acquisition of Meraki), Microsoft (which has something on the MDM front with Windows Intune), and HP (which specializes in saying stuff about BYOD that no one can understand).

In the end, MDM is a rather limited, specialized market that has experienced tremendous growth over the past few years in the wake of BlackBerry's historic implosion in the enterprise mobility space. Expect continued growth as more organizations come to realize that the capabilities provided in Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and IBM Notes Traveler simply don't provide the level of functionality needed to effectively manage either company-provided or BYOD mobile devices. However, don't expect "MDM" (or "EMM") to exist much longer as a standalone product category.

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