BYOD：带上你的设备来上班

    当年黑莓（Blackberry）统治企业市场时，IT部门的工作是何等轻松。如今的办公室已经被iPhone、Android手机以及大量平板电脑所充斥，而且越来越多的公司和机构甚至还鼓励员工用“BYOD”（带上你自己的设备——例如，购买任何你喜欢的设备）方式来包办与工作相关的电话、电子邮件和其它沟通联络。

    如今，很多IT团队都被不断增多的个人设备所困扰，所幸还有不少公司在帮助他们。MobileIron是一家位于加州山景城的公司，它向客户出售软件，帮助他们跟踪、管理及保护（这一点最重要）各种无线接入的手机和平板电脑。MobileIron的软件囊括所有主流移动操作平台，其客户包括芝加哥大学（the University of Chicago）和半导体公司科磊（KLA-Tencor）等。

    利用MobileIron的软件，公司技术人员可以监控大量手机，而且一旦移动设备落入不法分子之手，还能远程清除设备上的敏感数据。MobileIron还向公司员工提供工具，以便他们自行完成Wi-Fi连接注册、定位丢失设备等维护工作。如果员工遗漏了关键更新或是用非法方式操作了设备，系统会及时向IT部门发出警告。位于纽约的律师事务所Proskauer最近给600位律师配备了iPad，该公司高级技术战略家马尔科姆•科林伍德表示：“MobileIron能让我们管理公司的iPad用户。如果苹果（Apple）发布了安全更新，我们能非常迅速地发现哪些员工已经升级到最新版iOS，我们还能跟踪那些尚未升级的员工。”

    对移动设备进行管理的想法在好些年前就出现了。MobileIron创立于2007年，其竞争对手——位于加州红木海岸的Good Technology则创立于1996年。但这一行业在过去一年半才开始火爆起来。今年早些时候，科技调查公司高德纳（Gartner）发布了一份针对该产业的分析报告，包括了23家提供设备监控工具的公司，其中不乏提供全方位安全方案和企业级软件的公司，如英特尔（Intel）旗下的迈克菲（McAfee）、SAP旗下的赛贝斯（Sybase）等。

    MobileIron表示欢迎竞争，该公司最近募集到2,000万美元资金并在3个月内签下了200家客户。MobileIron的首席执行官鲍比•廷克称：“我认为目前有机会打造一项独立的、有利可图的产业。（MobileIron目前并未盈利，不过其募集资金总额已达5,700万美元。）我们的市场规模正在不断壮大，发展速度也越来越快。”确实如此，随着越来越多的公司给予员工日益多样化的移动设备选择权（Good Technology称，公司客户中，有60%已向员工提供了BYOD方案，还有30%则计划在今年年底前推出该方案），移动管理行业将会相当繁忙。

    译者：项航

    Life was a whole lot simpler for IT departments back when BlackBerrys ruled the workplace. Today's offices are populated with iPhones, Android-powered gadgets, and a slew of tablets -- and a growing number of companies and institutions even encourage employees to "BYOD" (bring your own device -- i.e., buy whatever you like) for work-related calls, e-mails, and other communications.

    Now a cadre of companies is stepping up to help beleaguered IT teams handle device proliferation. MobileIron, based in Mountain View, Calif., sells software that enables its customers -- including the University of Chicago and semiconductor company KLA-Tencor (KLAC) -- to track, manage, and, most important, secure a broad range of wireless phones and tablets on all the major mobile operating platforms.

    MobileIron's software lets a company's techies monitor their fleets of phones and remotely wipe a device clean of sensitive data if it falls into the wrong hands. It also offers a tool that allows employees to do some self-maintenance of their machines, such as registering for Wi-Fi access or locating a lost device. And if workers miss an important update or start using their devices in an unauthorized way, the system alerts the IT department. "MobileIron gives us the ability to reach out to our iPad users," says Malcolm Collingwood, senior technology strategist at Proskauer, a New York City-based law firm that recently outfitted 600 attorneys with iPads. "If Apple (AAPL) comes out with security updates, we can very quickly see who has upgraded to the latest version of iOS and then follow up with people who haven't."

    The idea of mobile management has been around a few years -- MobileIron launched in 2007 and rival Good Technology of Redwood Shores, Calif., in 1996 -- but the field has exploded in the past 18 months. Gartner earlier this year published an analysis of the industry and identified 23 companies offering device-monitoring tools, including full-service security and enterprise-software companies such as Intel-owned McAfee (INTC) and Sybase, an SAP (SAP) company.

    MobileIron, which recently raised $20 million in funding and signed up 200 customers in three months, welcomes the competition. "We think there's an opportunity here to build a standalone, profitable business," says Bob Tinker, MobileIron's CEO. (The company is not yet profitable but has raised a total of $57 million.) "We're in a market that just got really big really fast." Indeed, with more companies giving their employees more wireless choices (Good says 60% of its customers already offer employees a BYOD program, and another 30% plan to do so by the end of the year), there's plenty of work to go around.