Ads by TechWords

See your link here
Receive the latest technology news and information.
Enterprise Software
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
Cloud Computing
View all newsletters




Privacy Policy
 

Can you manage an iPhone like a BlackBerry?

The iPhone OS 3.0 adds improved support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync policies

June 23, 2009 06:33 AM ET

InfoWorld - Users love the iPhone, but IT does not. The biggest complaints: The iPhone can't be managed for security and access policies like a BlackBerry can. Businesses can buy a BlackBerry Enterprise Server or Motorola Good for Enterprise server to manage user profiles over the air, ensuring that users conform to password policies, encryption policies, app-installation restrictions, and so on, as well as have their e-mail, VPN, and other settings preconfigured to reduce hands-on deployment effort.

For some time now, Apple's offered its free iPhone Configuration Utility for Windows and Mac that lets IT set up and install configuration profiles on iPhones in BlackBerry-like breadth. But it doesn't provide the over-the-air reach, the granularity of control, or the visibility that BlackBerry Enterprise Server offers. Lacking these key needs of larger businesses, iPhone Configuration Utility has been dismissed as a toy application.

[ InfoWorld Test Center's first look: What iPhone 3.0 brings to business -- and what it misses. | Should you upgrade to iPhone 3.0 S or just get an iPhone 3G S? Tom Yager investigates. ]

But last week, Apple shipped the iPhone 3.0 OS that adds improved support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync policies, and it made available the 2.0 version of its iPhone Configuration Utility, with significant new management and security capabilities. Can IT now manage the iPhone in the manner of the BlackBerry and Windows Mobile device?

To answer that question, the InfoWorld Test Center has been testing both the version 2.0 iPhone Configuration Utility and Exchange ActiveSync as approaches to managing iPhones to see how well they really work, and what types of IT and businesses can effectively use them -- and which cannot.

The short answer: Each tool has important capabilities that the other lacks. For managing our fleet of iPhones (and iPod Touches), we'd prefer to use them in combination. For shops not running Exchange, managing iPhones with the iPhone Configuration Utility alone has one critical drawback: Should the phone be lost or stolen, an administrator cannot initiate a remote wipe of the phone's data, or receive confirmation that a remote wipe occurred. But we found that managing iPhones via Exchange is no substitute for using the iPhone Configuration Utility.

iPhone Configuration Utility 2.0: Powerful but not scalable

Apple's free iPhone Configuration Utility, boosted to a 2.0 version when iPhone 3.0 OS was released, has a rich array of policy controls that give IT great authority over iPhones and iPod Touches. The UI is easy to use, with various capabilities broken into "payload" sets that you switch among and configure for a given configuration profile. And they really do work, strictly enforcing their rules on the client devices.


Reprinted with permission from

For more enterprise computing news, visit Infoworld.com
Story copyright 2006 InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

Jump to comments

iPhone

Additional Resources

Microsoft
Here are some of the key reasons why you would want to run Unified Access Gateway with DirectAccess.
Microsoft
Review how one energy firm tightened protection and simplified IT work using business-ready security solutions.
Sybase
In this white paper, IDC analyzes the role of next-generation mobile enterprise platforms as organizations seek a more strategic deployment of mobile solutions.

Learn the important issues you must consider before starting your next mobility initiative. Get your mobility white paper from IDC now, compliments of Sybase.

What People Are Saying

White Papers & Webcasts

Open Source Master Data Management: The Time is Right
MDM is a natural extension to data integration and data quality. Open source MDM introduces a new, more accessible approach. It reduces implementation...  

The Value of Real SaaS at Workday
Download this short video! Provided by Workday

The Top 10 Reasons for Choosing Open Source Data Integration
Are you trying to understand your options for data integration? This White Paper presents the top 10 reasons why organizations are choosing open...  

BMC Application Performance and Analytics: Predictive Intelligence in Action
See the highlights of BMC's Application Performance and Analytics today!

Overcoming Single Provider MPLS Limitations
Download this white paper today!  

The Shift from Legacy Application Servers to Tomcat
Download this valuable white paper written by Bill Laberis, Editorial Director of Computerworld Custom Solutions Group.  

Bringing Web 2.0 to the Enterprise
Downlaod this white paper now!  

The Workday User Experience Video
Watch Workday's Creative Director, Scott Lietzke, discuss the business-centered design philosophy at Workday.

Featured Zone
Strategic Content Management
Learn how the right Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution can start saving you money within a week and pay for itself in as little as three months. These case studies and white papers provide practical information on how to go from theory to reality - to help you put together a plan that will achieve your content management and process automation goals.
Enter the Strategic Content Management Zone now


IT Jobs