MobileIron: The View from Supportlandia
February 12, 2019
MobileIron: The View from Supportlandia
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with MobileIron
MobileIron is the EMM solution for our organization. It is deployed for corporate-liable and personal-liable users across the entire org. It addresses mobility, efficiency, productivity and security.
- Organization: with it's flexible label structure and hooks into ActiveDirectory, MobileIron is effective at applying different policies to different groups of employees, depending on the country they live and work in.
- Reporting: Generating and interpreting reports is a task that is quickly learned and executed.
- Adaptability: MobileIron adapts to the changing mobile environment by incorporating and testing up-and-coming technologies such as Android Enterprise and Apple Business Manager (formerly DEP)
- We are flying blind when it comes to supporting our userbase during registration. We often have to visualize the registration steps they are going through, and there is a need to help them navigate the process. MDM Global Admins need better tools to assist with registration and troubleshooting. E.g. apps like Soti Mobi Connect, which allow us to see what the end-user is seeing during troubleshooting. The Core console should have a progress meter that reports where in the registration process each device is, and possible faults along the way (such as the user entering in a wrong password, or didn't accept an "Always Allow" setting).
- The process to register a DEP/Apple Business Managed device with managed apps needs to be simplified. E.g. GroundControl without the wired connections
- Provide global admins with a way to mimic a space admin's level of access. For example, while writing support documents (for our space admins who have less access to Core functionality than Global admins), I first have to test the steps with an individual space admin on the phone to make sure they can access the functionality my document references.
- MobileIron needs end-point protection/antivirus/antimalware to be an integrated part of the solution. I understand this is already in the works, but it couldn't come sooner.
- MobileIron has increased our workforce productivity and has long-since been a "nice to have". Mobile apps are expected to perform the same or better than their desktop counterparts when it comes to primary functions (checking email, calendar scheduling, document review); secondary functions (adding BCC, scheduling a conference room, document sharing) within reason.
- MobileIron allows us to enforce compliancy with mobile operating systems. If users allow their devices to be in a vulnerable state by not updating to the requested OS, we have the ability to disassociate the device from corporate resources.
I've been a user or admin of BES, Good Technology, AirWatch and MobileIron products over a span of 13 years. It feels unfair to compare them in a historical sense, as innovations were generally incorporated or copied into successive iterations of their products. For example, creating groups in early BES was a simple but manual process, and we only needed a single security policy for a "fleet" of only a few dozen devices. But as both devices and usage profiles increased in complexity, so did the functionality of these products to the point where today, all EMM solutions will offer a unique management solution that ultimately all do the same thing. How elegantly they do it is where they differentiate.