Top Enterprise Mobility Management Suites in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant

As workforces become increasingly mobile, organizations are realizing their need for tools to manage the smartphones, tablets and other products their employees use outside of the office. Those tools include enterprise mobility management (EMM) suites. With a single set of tools, companies can provision smartphones, ensure devices are properly patched and maintain security protocols. To help businesses find the best solution for them, Gartner in June released a Magic Quadrant—a report that ranks companies as “leaders,” “challengers,” “niche players” or “visionaries”—focused on enterprise mobility management tools. This eWEEK slide show looks at Gartner’s choices for the top EMM providers.

VMware landed at the top of the Enterprise Mobility Management Magic Quadrant. Having the best “completeness of vision” and the strongest “ability to execute,” it’s no wonder VMware is the clear market leader.

MobileIron was one of four companies to land in the market “Leaders” category. The company placed second, just behind VMware, in Gartner’s estimation for its “ability to execute” in the marketplace. However, of the market leaders, MobileIron finished last in “completeness of vision,” placing it firmly in the middle of the pack.

IBM landed in the third spot for “ability to execute” in the mobility management marketplace. The company placed just behind MobileIron and ahead of BlackBerry, the final “leader.” IBM did secure a stronger “completeness of vision” than MobileIron, although it finished behind BlackBerry in that evaluation.

BlackBerry rounds out the group of “leaders” in Gartner’s enterprise mobility management solutions report, having the lowest ranking among the top four for its “ability to execute.” It did, however, land in second place in “completeness of vision.” Interestingly, BlackBerry’s completeness of vision was slightly behind that of “visionary” Microsoft.

Speaking of Microsoft, the software giant found itself the leader of the industry’s group of “visionaries.” In fact, Microsoft fell just short of being placed in the “Leaders” category, due to middling performance in its “ability to execute.” Microsoft did, however, come in second place overall for its “completeness of vision.”

Citrix was a close second in the “Visionaries” quadrant, behind Microsoft. The company’s enterprise mobility management solution was barely behind Microsoft in both “ability to execute” and “completeness of vision.” Citrix did rank ahead of some market leaders for vision completeness, including IBM and MobileIron.

Sophos landed in the third spot in Gartner’s group of EMM “visionaries.” Sophos’ strong “ability to execute” nearly put it into the “Leaders” category, but its “completeness of vision” is far behind that of Microsoft and Citrix. Its vision completeness did, however, place ahead of MobileIron.

Next in Gartner’s evaluation of EMM solutions providers is SOTI. One reason it wasn’t placed higher in the roundup is because there was a steep drop-off from Microsoft, Citrix and Sophos in “ability to execute” to where SOTI ended up because the company does have a somewhat strong “completeness of vision.”

Ivanti was the fifth and final company to end up in the “Visionaries” quadrant. While it was nearly on pace with SOTI for its “ability to execute,” it was a bit behind its close competitor in its “completeness of vision.”

Matrix42 was one of the leaders in a quadrant Gartner calls “Niche Players.” Matrix42 earned high marks for its “completeness of vision,” placing it near last-place “visionary” Ivanti. However, it came in second place for its “ability to execute” in the Niche Players quadrant behind NationSky. Snow Software and Cisco were the other companies that landed in the Niche Players quadrant.