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Enterprise mobility management (EMM) and mobile security specialist MobileIron announced a slew of capabilities for its Google Android-focused security platform to accelerate the adoption of the open-source operating system in the enterprise.
With the fourth quarter 2013 release of MobileIron for Android, the company is launching a complete email and PIM (Personal Information Management) solution through a special partnership with Divide.
All content is encrypted and stored in a secure container on the mobile device, with configuration and data loss prevention (DLP) policies set through MobileIron.
In addition, MobileIron provides email attachment protection, secure browsing for embedded URLs, identity and access management (IAM) for client and server access, and secure tunneling for ActiveSync traffic.
The company also offers secure single sign on (SSO) support for both Web and native applications on Android. The app or browser presents an identity certificate to the MobileIron Sentry intelligent access gateway.
Sentry uses Kerberos Constrained Delegation (KCD) to get a Kerberos ticket that allows a secure connection to be established to the enterprise so that the app or browser can access enterprise resources without the employee needing to sign in each time.
For enterprises using IBM Notes, IBM Notes Traveler is now available with AppConnect integration, which means Traveler client for Android can be containerized and secured by an EMM platform.
In addition, MobileIron’s secure browsing solution, Web@Work, now offers browser-specific tunneling to access corporate Web resources without the need for devicewide virtual private network (VPN).
MobileIron is also one of the initial commercial licensees of the Samsung KNOX platform—an Android-based solution specifically designed to enhance security of the current Android platform–and now offers production support for KNOX containerization.
“More than half of our top customers are using Android in production environments and they want to grow those deployments substantially,” Ojas Rege, vice president of strategy for MobileIron, said in a statement. “Android has moved from being a feature on a checklist for the future to being a core requirement for today. With this release of MobileIron for Android, IT teams can finally make Android a full citizen in the enterprise.”
According to a recent report from IT research firm IDC, Android passed 75 percent market share of smartphone shipments in the second quarter of 2013, making it the dominant smartphone operating system globally and the preferred choice of many employees in bring-you-own-device (BYOD) programs.
At the same time, As a result of September 2013 recommendations from analyst firm Gartner, many Global 2000 companies are now considering a rapid and complete migration off BlackBerry, which has seen its market share collapse at the expense of Android devices and Apple’s iPhone.
However, as the fragmented Android ecosystem leaves the operating system open to numerous cyber-threats and Web-based attacks, many businesses will require a much more robust security infrastructure before Android becomes truly enterprise ready, which is exactly what MobileIron’s latest release is hoping to provide.