As mobile device management is now considered key to the lifeline of any business that allows employees to work while on-the-go on the device of their choice – also known as the increasingly popular BYOD (bring your own device) trend -- Microsoft (News - Alert) has decided to jump head first in the warm and glistening MDM pool. Its System Center 2012 system has been created from the ground up in order to increase visibility into all Windows (including RT and WP8), iOS and Android (News - Alert) devices, and comes complete with a revamped version of its Windows Intune cloud-based management service.

All of these solutions and more are encompassed within the Cloud OS management platform, an infrastructure touted as powering various, and invaluable products such as Azure, Windows Server, System Center, SQL Server and Visual Studio.

According to Rethink Wireless, the newest version of Intune powers Windows 8 and RT and Windows Phone (News - Alert) 8 support alike. While it is hosted on the Windows Azure public cloud, the newly launched edition of the product no longer heavily relies upon the Exchange ActiveSync protocol for mobile device management. This in turn will allow for better performance overall as well as seamless integration with third party applications.

Furthermore, in a recent blog post it was revealed that the product’s System Center Configuration Manager helps to overcome obstacles such as:

• Easily managing assorted mobile devices and platforms,
• Assisting IT administrators in closely analyzing which actions are being performed via both corporate- and personally-owned devices through a single console, and
•  A self-service portal for selecting and installing company apps.

With this offering in place, IT is now able to grant certain users permission to view important corporate documents and applications on the device the individual user feels most comfortable using. And, “administrators are able to address the unique challenges created by bring your own device policies by being able to identify and manage endpoint devices, including Windows PCs (physical and virtual), tablets, smartphones, Macs, and embedded devices all through a unified administration console,” the post added.

At this time, Windows Intune is now available to nearly 87 countries throughout the world.

Another MDM software provider that has the ability to reduce mobile support costs while concurrently offering a high level of support for major platforms iOS and Andrioid is MobileIron. The California-based company’s MobileIron Virtual Smartphone Platform is the first to combine data-driven mobile device management with real-time wireless control cost. Even more interesting is the fact that MobileIron has worked hand in hand with Microsoft as part of its Technology Adoption Program (TAP) for quite some time in order to allow its suite to work in conjunction with Windows Phone 8 devices. Thus, the MobileIron Version 5.5 also supports Windows Embedded 8 Handheld, along with Android, iOS, Mac OS, and Windows Phone, Director of Product Management, Tomas Vetrovsky, MobileIron commented.

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