It’s Time for True Mobile Device Lifecycle Management

With more and more employees out on the road, critical data can be lost or missed though email. Smart devices are increasing in popularity and organizations are trying to find a solution to effectively and efficiently manage the next generation of mobility in the workplace.

A prestigious but small liberal arts college on the east coast was experiencing difficulties associated with not being connected to e-mail at all times. A member of the development staff had finally scheduled a meeting with a wealthy alum, the intent to discuss a major gift to the university. The potential donor, however, had to change the meeting time and asked, in an e-mail, that the school representative not come to their home while other important guests were being entertained. The development staffer never received the e-mail and showed up at the originally scheduled time, much to both parties’ embarrassment. The donor was so incensed that he told the school to never contact him again and that he would not be giving them the large gift as he had planned.

Realizing the size of the gift they just lost and wanting to make sure they never lost another gift of that size, the university president mandated that everyone responsible for communicating with contributors adopt smart phones that could handle calls as well as access e-mail.

After researching the available devices in the market and understanding the mobile requirements of interfacing with their legacy e-mail server, the director of IT for the school determined they should utilize Palm Treo 650s for the 30 people in the development department.

He also realized that these were small computers that needed to be managed just like the laptops he had deployed across campus. They would need regular software updates. They would need to be backed up. And, if one was lost, it would need to have all sensitive data removed. Knowing that these employees spent most of their time off-campus, he understood that the devices could not simply be brought to his office each time they needed maintenance. He had to find a way to manage these devices over-the-air without taking them out of service for extended periods of time. He needed to get this initiative off the ground quickly and he wasn’t given much of a budget. In fact, he wasn’t given any budget. Everything he spent in bringing this together had to be approved by the school’s controller who watched every penny.

In his effort to find a solution, the director came across several alternatives but each was lacking in different areas. The first option he found only worked with a couple of devices and didn’t include the Treo 650s that they were going to use. The next solution only synchronized data, but didn’t perform any of the other necessary functions. Another seemed to have the capabilities he required, but the company wanted to charge well over $300,000 and that was with the discount for educational institutions. The controller would never allow what was effectively $10,000 per device he needed to manage.

Other solutions would force him to add a great deal of hardware to his IT infrastructure and needed a good deal of training before it could be fully functional. With those, it would be months before he could be operational. It seemed that no matter which application he chose, he was going to lose out on something.

The decision

Just when he was about to lose patience with the whole project, he found Perlego. He soon learned that the mobile device lifecycle management solution offered by Perlego had all the functionality he needed. It could distribute software or security patches, it could backup the data on the phone, it could even make sure sensitive data was not accessed if the device was lost.
Perlego also gave him a number of other advantages he couldn’t find anywhere else. As a hosted solution, Perlego only required that the clients be installed on the devices and then they could be managed through a secure web interface. No servers to purchase and install. No bulky software to run on their network. He could be up and running literally in minutes. Not months. Not weeks.

Perlego also had the advantage of no heavy fees. As a subscription-based service, he only had to pay for the devices he managed and nothing more. He already knew he could remove hundreds of dollars per year, per device from his costs by using over-the-air technology to manage his smart phones. With Perlego’s subscription being only a fraction of that savings, he knew he had a home run with his controller.

After a short discussion with an authorized Perlego reseller and seeing for himself how easy it was to use, he made his decision. Seventeen minutes later, he was distributing software to his devices and taking full advantage of the Perlego functionality.

The result

The school’s IT staff has never been more efficient and the development team has never been happier. With a minimum of effort, they can configure e-mail over the air for new employees and send out updates or patches to the devices without the employees needing to bring their device in to be serviced. Documents and critical data needed on the road can be sent over the air to the devices so the team always has the most current information.

“What I enjoyed most about the Perlego solution was how quickly I could put it to work,” says the director. “My staff did not need hours of training and extensive manuals because the solution is so easy to understand and use. Our IT staff now has fewer headaches when it comes to fixing and maintaining mobile devices since it can all be done over the air. And that will continue as we deploy more devices to other departments – no matter what typ