MobileIron are a relatively newcomer to the corporate device management space, but have already been listed by Gartner among their "cool vendors" in 2010.

The MobileIron Virtual Smartphone Platform is a complete device management solution incorporating over-the-air enforced security and usage policies, file and application deployment and control, secure mobile network access, asset management and inventory reporting as well as mobile cost control.

Supporting Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian, Android and Apple iOS, the solution provides a central web-based console to manage all platforms in use in your organisation including BlackBerry provided that you have an existing BlackBerry Enterprise Server infrastructure deployed.

Features

Multi-OS Device Management

• Central web-based console across operating systems
• Inventory and asset management
• Device configuration
• Encryption policy (both phone and removable storage)
• Lockdown security (camera, SD, Bluetooth, WiFi)
• Password enforcement
• Remote lock and wipe
• App inventory, distribution, blacklist
• File distribution
• End-user self-service

Remote Control

• Real-time, permission-based

Enterprise Data Boundary

• Selective wipe
• Privacy policy

Access Control (Sentry)

• ActiveSync connection activity and device visibility
• Blocking of email access

Advanced Security

• Certificate distribution
• Back-end virus scan

Lost Phone Recovery

• Locate and map
• Restore and migrate

Enterprise App Store

• Catalogue creation
• App publishing

Administration

• Over-the-air provisioning
• Role-based access
• Group-based access
• Broadcast SMS, APNs
• Persistent logs and audit trails

Enterprise Integration

• Web Services API
• Blackberry Enterprise Server Integration
• Directory Services AD/LDAP

Cost Control

The MobileIron solution incorporates detailing activity logging and reporting on registered mobile devices, enabling you to easily keep track of the costs and usage patterns of your mobile device estate across voice, data and SMS.
Reports can be filtered across operator, mobile platform as well as between company-billed and employee-billed phones.
Data is updated in real-time and alerts can be triggered when users begin roaming and reach their roaming charges limit. Alerts can also be generated when users exceed their agreed plan or make calls to premium rate numbers.

Self-Service

Users can access elements of the MobileIron solution themselves, enabling them to provision their own devices, download applications from the corporate app repository, access usage reports as well as remotely lock or wipe their own device.

MobileIron Sentry

The MobileIron Sentry module secures access to your Microsoft Exchange infrastructure's ActiveSync capability by enabling the administrator to define access policies based on device platform or on an individual basis, ensuring that only authorised devices and users can access their Exchange mailbox via Exchange ActiveSync.
The administrator can also generate reports on who and what has been accessing the Exchange server in real time.
Mobile Sentry can be deployed as an agent on the Exchange server itself, or if Exchange is not being used as the back-end mail server, Mobile Sentry can also sit on a separate appliance between the client device and the back-end mail server employing the Exchange ActiveSync protocol such as Lotus Domino using Lotus Traveler or a hosted Google Mail solution. A separate appliance approach can also be used in an Exchange deployment.
Client devices would connect to the MobileSentry appliance (requiring that the appliance have an SSL certificate assigned to it ideally) and be passed through to the Exchange server provided that they are verified by access control policy.

It is important to note that this approach does not support the passing of Outlook Web Access requests, therefore if Mobile Sentry is deployed on a separate appliance, separate provisions must be made for publishing OWA, either by using ISA server publishing rules or deploying a separate Exchange Client Access Server specifically for OWA.

iPhone & iPad Management

The below video provides an overview of the MobileIron solution's capabilities around the iOS platform:

Summary

The below chart lists the principle features available in the MobileIron solution. More information is available on the MobileIron web site - http://www.mobileiron.com as well as the MobileIron YouTube channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/mobileiron

Product Datasheets are attached at the end of this article. Additional documentation is also included in the Device Management section of the File Library