CounterPath Enters MDMCounterPath Enters MDM

There is a growing need to separate and manage business applications on employee devices, and CounterPath's entrance into the MDM market offers a way to do so.

CounterPath introduced their Mobile Device Management (MDM) offering in late February. Their target is specifically at enterprises with BYOD users that require protection of assets, devices that are easier to configure and update, and to provide key analytics and app distribution.

The key functions of a MDM system that CounterPath includes are:

App Distribution
* Granular controls to determine which apps are available to specific employees

Security
* User authentication
* Encryption of data (including Contacts and IM archive)
* Selective wipe (allows IT to remotely delete apps & data)
* Prevent screen capture
* Prevent copy & paste to unmanaged apps, such as Twitter, Facebook and Dropbox

Configuration
* Push configuration data for each app

Analytics
* Which apps are used by which employees
* Which devices each employee is using

When I spoke with Todd Carothers, EVP of Marketing & Products at CounterPath, he told me about the key benefits:

* MDM enables Enterprises to securely deploy apps at scale across their organization
* By deploying CounterPath softphones that are certified for use with leading MDM solutions, enterprises can manage their UC clients in the same way as other corporate apps
* MDM provides granular controls on which apps can be used by each employee

This establishes a secure container on the user's device that separates work applications from personal apps; only corporate approved apps are allowed within the MDM container.

This is important because anything within the MDM container stays within that container. But there's also call recording, according to Todd; especially in the finance vertical, they want to direct when and where a call should be recorded. Each call MOS (Mean Opinion Score) is recorded, and analytic data is available on a Web portal, as raw data or downloadable as a CSV file.

When devices are lost, misplaced or stolen, IT can selectively wipe the device's apps and data. Recent reports suggesting that 40% of BYOD devices are used to access corporate data and services suggests a potential nightmare for enterprise IT trying to manage BYOD without MDM. Key is addressing what Todd points out as four crucial areas: distribution, configuration, security and analytics.

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