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    AppSense Brings Mobile Computing Back Under Control

    The trouble with the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) phenomenon is the simple fact that most IT organizations have no tools or processes in place to manage it. The end result is a lot of poorly protected endpoints that more than likely are out of compliance with any number of regulations. It’s little wonder that IT people are starting to say BYOD actually stands for Bring Your Own Disaster.

    To help IT organizations get a better handle on BYOD, AppSense this week released MobileNow, a management platform for not only managing mobile devices but also the applications that run on them.

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    According to Ajay Arora, CTO of Mobile for Appsense, MobileNow is specifically designed to make it easier to manage corporate assets on a mobile device while at the same time recognizing data that is of a personal nature on that same device. Arora says the basic idea is that an IT organization should be able to manage mobile devices in a more granular fashion that allows for the fact that end users want to be able to store personal data on a mobile computing device or load their own applications.

    In addition to isolating the management of corporate applications on mobile computing devices regardless of who owns the device, Arora says MobileNow makes sure that all the data in those corporate applications is encrypted. By encrypting that data, the mobile device by definition becomes compliant with a whole host of regulations.

    Mobile device management at the moment is still a relatively murky area in terms of what rules organizations can actually legally enforce on a device the company doesn’t own. What AppSense is essentially doing is moving the mobile management conversation up to the application layer, where the rights of the organization that paid for the application are a whole lot clearer.

    Mike Vizard
    Mike Vizard
    Michael Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist, with nearly 30 years of experience writing and editing about enterprise IT issues. He is a contributor to publications including Programmableweb, IT Business Edge, CIOinsight and UBM Tech. He formerly was editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise, where he launched the company’s custom content division, and has also served as editor in chief for CRN and InfoWorld. He also has held editorial positions at PC Week, Computerworld and Digital Review.

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