Will an $8 "Dual Persona" App Enable Employees to Securely Use Their Personal Smartphones for Work?

By Dan Baldwin, Editor
951-251-5155 email  

I recently attended a seminar put on by Verizon titled "The State of Mobility" which was promoted as an opportunity to meet Verizon's enterprise mobility experts and hear them speak on the current and future state of mobility strategy as well as an overview of Verizon's "Enterprise Mobility as a Service" ("eMaaS") solution.

The two -hour session began with Ed Branham and Forrest Carr covering the difficult questions CIOs and IT managers were struggling with as they attempt to decide about incorporating MDM ("mobile device management") into their enterprise operations including:

1. Should we even allow BYOD ("bring your own device") where employees use their personal smartphones and tablets to access required corporate mobility applications?
2. How do we create a reasonable MDM/BYOD policy that properly balances application access and corporate control?
3. Which MDM software solution should we implement to control mobile devices and application access? 
4. How do we make sure our data stays secure?

The session was too short to detail many answers but as the CIOs and IT managers in the seminar audience were all within shouting distance of their Verizon account executive, one could assume that Verizon is ready to have their enterprise mobility account teams solve any mobility problem a customer could envision.

 

$8 Per Month Per Employee to Instantly Resolve all MDM/BYOD Issues for any Company?

The second half of the seminar delivered the easy answer for anyone looking for an off the shelf solution they could throw at their MDM/BYOD problems today as Steven Baker and Tom Thimot presented Verizon's "Enterprise Mobility as a Service" or "eMaaS" solution.

According to the presentation, Verizon's eMaaS solution starts with device and expense management with a web-based portal that allows enterprise businesses to track all their mobile endpoint devices and make sure they're not overpaying for minutes and bandwidth. The presentation claimed that the software was "vendor agnostic" and using all Verizon Wireless cell phones was not required.

The presenters freely admitted that plenty of competitors like BoxTone, AirWatch and MobileIron existed that do MDM/BYOD but then they segued into Verizon's incorporation of a "Dual Persona" mobility solution which would solve the CIO & IT manager's MDM/BYOD problems and forever eliminate the need for any employee to ever again carry two cell phones - one for business use and one for personal use.

 

What's Dual Persona and Will Employees Trust it on Their Personal Smartphones?

"Dual Persona" refers to a mobile device application that allows a single smartphone to primarily be a personal cell phone but when the dual persona app is activated it turns the phone into a corporate smartphone that is VPNed into all the corporate mobility apps that the employee needs to do his or her job and is "fire walled" safely from the personal apps and data on the same smartphone.

Click here or the video below to view a 3-minute demonstration of the Divide dual persona smartphone application by EnterProid that Verizon has co-oped into their eMaaS solution. Click here to view a 1-minute Divide corporate promo video.

 

Pretty cool, huh?  Who wouldn't want that on their phone? It's the MDM/BYOD answer, right?  With the right dual persona app, every corporation can have a pretty simple MDM/BYOD policy like:

1. To work here you must have (and pay for) your own smartphone.
2. You must download and install this dual persona app and then manage it properly.
3. Don't worry, we won't we won't keep track of how much time you spend fooling around with your personal app during work hours (even though we can)

Now I've not discussed with any CIOs or IT managers how much this dual persona app has solved all their MDM/BYOD problems - but for lack of having a cheaper place to start - Verizon's eMaaS seems like an inexpensive place to start. Verizon's retail price point for their whole eMaas solution which includes the Divide dual persona app is $8 per month per employee.

 

Will Verizon Win the MDM/BYOD War on Price and User Self-Management?

The presenters went out of their way to reinforce the fact that Verizon's solution price is per employee where as all their MDM/BYOD competitors charge per device. It was at this point that Steven Baker pulled out all four of his mobile devices (a Blackberry, an Android, an iPad and a laptop computer) and said Verizon's eMaaS solution covered all these devices for one low price.

The eMaaS presentation closed with Tom Thimot showing the user and administrator web portals for the Divide dual persona application. The highlight was how robust the user portal was. My understanding from the presentation was that authorized users could buy any mobile device they wanted to use off Craigslist and, if it had a reasonably recent version of the native operating software, download the eMaaS application onto it and start using it for work without the company IT manager having to get involved.

"Just $8 per month for all an employees mobile devices and I don't have to do anything but passively watch who's connecting what?" has got to be a question the CIOs and the IT manager's in the seminar had to be asking themselves at the meeting's conclusion.  

I guess that's why all the Verizon account reps were in the room!

 

Who Do You Think's Providing the Best MDM/BYOD Solutions? Send Us Your Review

I've personally not directly consulted or sold MDM or BYOD to any of my own end-user business clients. One larger client I have does use eMobus for mobile device inventory and expense management and reports that they've got no complaints. 

Please click here to review whatever MDM and/or BYOD you use for your own company or sell/consult to your business clients. With the reviews we receive we'll add MDM and BYOD to our "Recommended Vendors and Partners" directory so you can work with a MDM or BYOD vendor that's recommended by Telecom Association members and their business end-user customers.

 

Who Can I Vouch for Now in the MDM and BYOD World?

If my blog post here has filled you with the motivation necessary to take your MDM/BYOD project off the back burner and address or solve the problem tomorrow, here's a list Telecom Association vendors and individual partner/consultant members that you may want to start with that I've personally met and can pretty much vouch for.

 

TA Vendor Members with Recommended MDM & BYOD Solutions

Wholesale Carrier Services - The president of WCS, Chris Barton, leads with his own wallet when researching telecom solutions for his enterprise customers. He saw MDM as an important solution several years ago, researched all the best providers and elected to bankroll his MDM solution by hooking up with eMobus.  Click here to read a blog post I did last year that shows an overview of the eMobus solution and provides a link to an online demo.

World Telecom Group - The founder of WTG, Vince Bradley, specializes in bringing any telecom solution a business would want to consider (and that actually works) to market. WTG has a whole mobility division headed by Tem Wu that connects telecom consultants and their clients to almost any mobility solution in the marketplace. WTG holds the unique distinction of winning more TA "Members Choice" awards for mobility than any other TA  vendor.

Communication Management Services - The founder of CMS, Gene Foster, can pretty much instantly evaluate any enterprise mobility challenge and then let a consultant or end-user know if there's a cost effective solution. CMS has even created a wireless mobility solution page as well as a wireless store to showcase all the solutions and services that he and his enterprise clients can directly vouch for.

Telarus - The two principals of Telarus, Adam Edwards and Patrick Oborn studied the mobility solution marketplace and then chose to partner with Advantix Solutions and Josh Lipton to bring Advantix' MDM solutions to the business market through Telarus' independent distributors.  Advantix gave a presentation at Telarus' recent partner show that was very well received.

Are you a TA vendor with a MDM or BYOD solution that should be featured here?  Please email your MDM or BYOD solution web page URL as well as a customer or partner review to Dan@BusinessPhoneNews.com for inclusion here.

 

TA Partner Members with MDM & BYOD Consulting Experience

Natasha Royer Coons - Natasha has been consulting in the enterprise mobility space through her company TeraNova Consulting Group for many years and has a specialty in the M2M ("machine to machine") space.

Lorie Burkemper - The owner of iSimplify, Lorie's mobility expertise was showcased at Telarus' recent partner summit during the Advantix presentation where Lorie reviewed with the audience some of her bigger mobility deals.

Patricia Van de Bovenkamp - The owner of United Technology, Patricia's mobility expertise was showcased at Telarus' recent partner summit during the Advantix presentation where Lorie reviewed with the audience some of her bigger mobility deals.  

Matt Coffy - The owner of Slash Wireless, Matt was one of the original independent mobility consultants helping enterprise customers having learned about the mobility game over seven years at Tangoe and Sprint.

Rob Goble - If you need a wireless solution that involves fulfilling a great deal of individual handsets then you need to share what you're doing with Rob, the owner of Venicom. Rob's been dealing in mass quantities of mobile handsets longer than anyone else I've met in the business going back to 1990.

Morgan Palma - An enterprise account executive for Verizon Business, Morgan's the person who handles my client's account that got me the invitation to the Verizon mobility presentation. If you're interested in a closer look at Verizon's MDM and BYOD solutions I'm sure she can help you.

Are you a TA partner member with a MDM or BYOD solution that should be featured here?  Please email your MDM or BYOD solution web page URL as well as a customer or partner review to Dan@BusinessPhoneNews.com for inclusion here.

 

Other Related Content Pieces 

Will AT&T Toggle on iPhone open the dual-persona floodgates for VMware?

Interview With Dan Dearing Of Enterproid On BYOD, RIM, Tablets, And The Future Of IT

BYOD Smackdown 2012: Enterproid Divide creates a secure work persona on personal devices

'Dual Persona' Mobile Clients Will Simplify UC BYOD Issues

Verizon's Enterprise Mobility as a Service Factsheet

Verizon's Enterproid Divide™ Platform Solution Description
 

Comments, Upgrades or Contributions to our Forthcoming MDM & BYOD Buyer's Guide?

As a consultant or customer for MDM and/or BYOD solutions, what are your thoughts on the content presented here in this blog? Please share your thoughts as a comment below.

BusinessPhoneNews.com is in the process of producing a MDM and BYOD Buyer's Guide. If you're a Telecom Association vendor or member that would like to contribute objective mobility content to the buyer's guide and share authorship credit as a contributor, please contact Dan Baldwin at Dan@BusinessPhoneNews.com.

Comments

[Art Rosenberg]

I am glad to see such progress in exploiting "dual persona" mobile applications. While BYOD is still perceived as a driver for "dual persona" mobile devices for business users, an even greater role will be played for consumers who will be using "mobile apps" provided to customers by various types of service providers.

As consumers increasingly use multi-modal smartphones and tablets for all their personal and business contacts and self-service applications, the need for "dual persona" control of mobile/online application access for customer self-services will be enormous.

See my post on this subject at:

http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/-dual-persona-mobile-clients-will-simplify-uc-byod-issues.aspx