Intel today finally launched support in its LANDesk Management Suite for mobile laptops and PDAs with its new LANDesk Mobile Manager option.
The new software distribution, asset and inventory management option integrates Xcellenet Inc.s Afaria remote management software into the LANDesk management console.
Although Intel is late to market with its mobile management offering, its choice of Xcellenets market-leading tool was a good one, believes Ronni Colville, research director at Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn.
“In the competitive landscape, they are late to market. Novadigm and Marimba already do mobile; Altiris has some semblance of mobile support. Theres a growing constituent base there and its becoming more and more prevalent. The good thing is they picked the number one player,” she said.
The add-on option to LANDesk Management Suite 6.6 allows an administrator to distribute and update both applications and business data remotely from laptops and PDAs. It can also track version numbers as well as hardware and software assets in the field. At the same time, administrators can also back up and restore mission-critical data from the devices and centrally manage device configurations.
The integration between LANDesk servers and the Xcellenet tool is just short of sharing the same code base, according to Robert Naegle, director of market development for Intel in Riverton, Utah.
“At the console level, whether youre working with a wireless product or a wired LAN-based system, everything looks exactly the same. All the things Afaria brings to the table—software distribution, data gathering—all the functionality is enabled at the console level,” he said.
In fact, Xcellenet already uses Intels scanning technology for inventory management in Afaria, according to Colville. “This is a natural progression for Intel and Xcellenet,” she said.
Naegel also asserted that Xcellenet provides the broadest support for PDAs and other handheld devices. Along with a range of mobile laptops, the new LANDesk option can support WindowsCE / Pocket PC and Palm devices.
The LANDesk Mobile Manager is due out by September 10. It is priced at $64 per managed device or lower in greater volumes.
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