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BYOD: The Next Managed Services Gold Rush?

MSP News - Analyst Corner

BYOD: The Next Managed Services Gold Rush?

May 22, 2012
By Charles Weaver
CEO and Co-founder, MSPAlliance

Managed service providers are always looking for the next big "thing", whatever that may be. Being unafraid to embrace new technologies has been part of the DNA of MSPs since their inception. Today, just a few years after many MSPs thought mobile device management was a commodity play and hardly worth the effort to manage, MSPs should embrace their adventurous spirit and re-evaluate their policies on offering mobile device management. 


Years ago, when RIM was actually a highly respected (and highly valued) company, Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) was the gold standard of mobile device management. When it came to security, data protection, capacity to manage large device deployments, BES was the mobile device management platform of choice for MSPs. Today, many MSPs are likely to think that managing mobile devices is too problematic, doesn't hold enough margin to make it interesting, and is just not worth the time and effort to pursue. If this is your posture as a MSP, I would encourage you to re-evaluate your thinking. Here's why.

Data sprawl is the big elephant in the room that everyone seems to be ignoring, particularly at the SMB level. If large corporations can accommodate (and this is a big if) Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), it is another matter entirely to assume that mid-market and SMB entities are capable of handling this phenomenon. Mobile devices, including smart phones, tablets, and other portable devices that can access the most sensitive corporate data areas, are proliferating at a speed that is truly staggering. Moreover, organizations and businesses are struggling to deal with the pressure of employees (starting from executives all the way down the corporate ladder) demanding IT departments support and secure any device they want to bring to work. Needless to say, most IT departments are ill equipped to manage a true BYOD environment, especially with everything else they have to manage. Enter the MSPs.

Even with RIM temporarily sidelined (don't count them out just yet), there are a number of powerful mobile device management platforms available to MSPs who want to "re-enter" this once lucrative market. MobileIron, Symantec (News - Alert), Good, Zenprise, and others, have created tools that make it possible for MSPs to broaden their mobile device management capabilities. Help desk, monitoring, setting and managing security policies, all are valid and feasible functions MSPs provide for customers and their mobile devices. Also, with these new tools, MSPs no longer have to take each device by itself. Instead, MSPs can structure comprehensive mobile device policies that transcend the device manufacturers. 

Perhaps most important in all this is the fact that mobile device management has different levels of importance for each customer. Meaning, some organizations will treat this seriously and others will not. Because MSPs can lock down and control these devices at different levels, they can also charge different prices for those customers that appreciate the dangers of BYOD when not managed properly. 

BYOD is a threat. And yet, businesses and organizations continue to allow employees to dictate IT policies that can put their organizations at risk. MSPs can and should play a role when it comes to mobile device management. If you aren't already offering managed services around mobile devices, you may want to rethink your position sooner rather than later.




Edited by Stefania Viscusi





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