eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
T-Mobile isn’t only the “un-carrier” when it comes to courting consumers.
On Feb. 12, it announced a new relationship with Mission Critical Wireless (MCW), a subsidiary of Digital Management (DMI), that will enable T-Mobile’s business customers to pair MCW’s around-the-clock help desk support and managed services with the MobileIron mobile-device-management (MDM) services currently in T-Mobile’s portfolio.
T-Mobile said the new offering is indeed part of its new un-carrier position—its phrase for forging a new path in an industry that tends to compete not via business models but with pricing, devices and network strength. A spokesperson for the carrier told eWEEK that as far as T-Mobile knows, “no other major U.S. carrier currently offers anything similar.”
MCW has rolled out hundreds of deployments to support more than half a million devices, and research firm IDC has called MobileIron the fastest-growing mobile enterprise management vendor in the world.
“As business mobilizes, organizations often must support multiple operating systems, secure enterprise data on both corporate and employee-owned devices, and build and deliver mobile applications. However, many of these organizations are at a crossroads on how to address security and device management efficiently and cost effectively,” Frank Sickinger, T-Mobile’s senior vice president of B2B, said in a statement.
With MobileIron, which offers “real-time intelligence and control over mobile content, activity and applications,” Sickinger added, “we are providing flexibility and choice.”
In its statement, T-Mobile pointed to research from IDC, which has found the MDM market to be “poised for significant growth over the next few years” and a Gerson Lehrman survey that found CIOs to be increasingly concerned about information security, as bring your own device (BYOD) policies and programs increase. In 2011, 60 percent of CIOs said they felt challenged by increasing data usage, versus 90 percent in 2012, and 80 percent said they were concerned about data security in 2012, compared with 82 percent in 2013.
Since in the fall of 2012 T-Mobile signed on John Legere as CEO and announced plans to merge with prepaid wireless carrier MetroPCS , the once deflated carrier has been rejuvenated. Working to build its base of business uses, it feistily revealed earlier this month that it hoped to be the first U.S. carrier to offer the BlackBerry Z10 (an honor that ultimately went to tiny contract-free carrier Solavei) and has shared plans to attract consumers by selling an iPhone this year and with untraditional terms.
While T-Mobile’s peers have been burdened by the subsidies they pay in order to offer the iPhone for $199 with a two-year contract, T-Mobile plans to offer the smartphone unsubsidized, without a contract, and with the offer of a monthly financing plan.
These changes, Legere told Reuters in January, will likely come in “three to fourth months, as opposed to six to nine months.”
A new ad campaign is also in the works.
“We’re going right at it with attitude,” Legere told a crowd at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show. “You’ll see some swagger. You’ll see some attitude. You’ll see some aggressive attacks on our competition—all in fun, of course.”
Follow Michelle Maisto on Twitter.