Enterproid

Here at Enterproid, we often get asked whether the Bring-Your-Own-Device trend in mobile is one that companies are going to embrace. We firmly believe that they will not because it's new and innovative, but because it's a logical extension of a trend that companies have always followed--a trend that actually even pre-dates modern IT.

Businesses, especially in the United States, have always searched for perks and/or enhanced capabilities for their employees. There was a time when businesses would provide executives with a "company car" that was corporate liable--the car was purchased and maintained by the company but provided to the employee for their own use. However as time passed and car ownership became more prevalent, it made sense to abandon this model because corporate liable vehicles were extremely expensive to the company in terms of management overhead (and also in terms of real liability should the driver get into trouble!). Also, individual employees wanted to move away from having the same vehicle as all of their peers. Instead, they wanted to purchase vehicles that reflected their individual personalities.

Closer and more relevant examples to mobile BYOD trend are also plentiful. At the dawn of the internet, it was not at all unusual for companies to provide employees with dedicated corporate-liable ISDN lines so that they could work from home. Nowadays, this has been replaced by commoditized consumer broadband that is paid for by the employee. Similarly, it wasn't too long ago that companies required the use of a company-owned fully managed laptop if an employee wanted to work from home. The trend is now to move away from this model and to allow work from any remote machine using virtualization technologies such as Citrix or VMware.

Divide continues the tradition of consumerization and commoditization of enterprise technologies. Enterprise mobility was once considered a perk, and a corporate liable model made sense in the same way as a company car once made sense for the same reasons. However, mobility is now a critical part of everyday business life and users are demanding more choice and flexibility in how they use it. We here at Enterproid want to be part of enabling that to happen.

We are happy to announce that we are officially out of beta! Divide is now available in the Android Market allowing you to use your Android device for both work and play. The Divide Platform includes access to My Divide, our personal management console. Lost your device? Don’t worry, My Divide gives you useful functions such as beacon, screenlock, and personal/corporate wipe to protect your data and help you find your device. And those are only a few reasons why your IT department will also love Divide. Divide Corporate is our enterprise version that simplifies the lives of IT Administrators in many ways. So be sure tell your IT guy the news--he'll thank you later.

More tools are becoming available to businesses in the form of applications.

Enterproid is focused on delivering enterprises the tools needed to enable the Mobile Internet. I take great pride in being part of that, as I've been fortunate to see what "enablement" looks like in the real world.

During my last two years at Trust Digital and McAfee, I was part of the initial wave of Mobile Device Management (MDM) in support of iOS-based devices (iPhone and iPad). At first, IT simply wanted to enable email, but that changed quickly. Stakeholders across the enterprise landscape were finding innovative ways to apply these devices to their daily work. Industries of all sizes wanted to leverage their device’s Apps to increase overall productivity. Pilots began flying with tablets instead of 40-pound manuals. Retailers deployed tablets not only to replace cash registers, but also to transform how they interacted with customers. And soon enough, an entire crew of a cruise ship could use their smartphones and custom Apps to stay connected and instantly manage the ship’s operations.

Imagination is inspired by new tools. Our new tools include an array of Apps deployed on smaller computing form-factors with multi-touch interfaces. You can get Apps for seemingly any business purpose these days, but if an enterprise has their own ideas, they can apply easy-to-use development tools to create their own mobile Apps in no time at all. It's now a snowball effect--as enterprises provide examples of what's possible, others are inspired to imagine.

Enterproid wants to enable our customers to explore the full depth of their imagination. We will be working hard to optimize and improve the Divide platform, as well as add tools that will help IT administrators reach their innovative potentials. The stakes are profound. We all have an opportunity to unleash a new wave of productivity, and the team at Enterproid is excited to be part of this wave!

Employees want to have the choice of which device they use.

Recently it's become clear that the Bring-Your-Own-Device movement is very real, gaining momentum and yet still poorly understood. It seems like there should be no problems at first; employees already want to use the devices they've bought for personal use, and employers gain real cost savings benefits by allowing them to do so. However the problem comes not from deciding whether BYOD is a good idea - most stakeholders agree that it is - but from what BYOD means in terms of what a company should be allowed to do on a device that it doesn't own. In a corporate-liable BlackBerry world the answer is easy - the company buys the device so it gets to dictate what you can and cannot do on it. And in general, the "cannots" outweighs the "cans" as many IT departments deactivate SMS, apps, media, personal browsing, and anything else they consider a potential risk.

Many solutions that attempt to enable BYOD do this by bringing this same BlackBerry model to a broader range of smartphones such as iPhone and Android devices. However, in a world where you use a device that you've picked out and paid for yourself, the BlackBerry model really no longer makes sense. Even where it's technically possible, your company shouldn't be in the business of restricting what you're allowed to do. It's obviously not good for you, and it's not good for your employer as there are multiple legal hoops they need to jump through to exert control over a device they do not own. Imagine a scenario where a command is accidentally issued to indiscriminately wipe all data, personal and otherwise, on an employee's phone and you can see why companies often need to protect their BYOD initiatives with legal waivers and agreements

Here at Enterproid, we believe that moving from a corporate-liable world to a BYOD world means moving beyond the BlackBerry full-device-control model. Our vision of a dual persona device allows freedom on the part of the user while preserving risk-control and management capabilities for the employer. That's why we've been working hard to create the Divide platform. Ultimately, it makes employees happier while simplifying the lives of IT administrators. That sounds pretty good to us.

Divide lets you do work and play on one device.

Today we're very pleased to announce that we're opening up the beta of our Divide platform to public signups. The idea behind Divide is simple; you shouldn't have to compromise the way you use your personal smartphone just because you also want to do work on it. At the same time, you should still be confident that your work data is always secured and protected.

Divide does this by creating a virtual work profile on your device that contains your professional data and apps. This means that you can define different levels of security for your work and personal profiles; for example if you like you can set a strong password for work while having no password at all for personal. And because the Divide platform walls off your work data, no app you download from an App store can access it.

The Divide platform is also constantly connected to our cloud servers so that you or your IT administrator can access it at any time. If you need to locate your device or see reports on how much of your data plan your work apps have used, you can do that yourself right from your personal console. And if your IT administrator needs to look at all the devices your company has deployed, they can do that from their IT console. Don't worry though - your personal profile data is completely private and never shared with your company. In fact if your IT administrator decides to wipe your device, only your work profile will be wiped, leaving your personal data safely intact.

Divide is currently available in Beta form for Android devices; we'll be rolling out invites over the next few weeks so please go ahead and sign up if you'd like to give it a try. We're also looking to bring our technology to other mobile platforms in the future.

If you have any questions, as a user or as a member of IT, you can always reach us at contact@enterproid.com. We look forward to hearing your feedback!