eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
Technology giant Dell unveiled its latest mobility and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) offering for enterprise mobility management (EMM), with enhancements to its Mobile Workspace, a cloud-based solution that allows secure access to enterprise phone, email and storage services from an employee’s personal Android or iOS smartphone or tablet.
The software helps streamline mobile enablement with the availability of Dell Business Phone powered by Vonage Business Solutions, email integration with Microsoft Office 365 and access to Box for Dell to support enterprise content collaboration.
With Business Phone, employees have a separate business line and phone number on their existing Android or iOS smartphone or tablet using Mobile Workspace.
The voice feature also gives enterprises the ability to set security and calling policies, as well as route calls over WiFi, cellular voice and data networks to help control telecom expenses.
Dell’s new Mobile Workspace capabilities will be available in October, and for the company’s EMM customers, Business Phone powered by Vonage Business Solutions will be offered as four prepackaged plans, starting at $19.99 per month for up to 1,000 voice minutes and unlimited text. There is no activation fee.
“Managing the growing complexity of devices that employees are bringing to work creates problems for IT as they need to ensure secure remote access to apps, services and data from those devices,” Neal Foster, general manager of enterprise mobility software at Dell, told eWEEK. “Manageability is another major concern due to the need for IT to rapidly deploy new apps and services across a multitude of devices, including employee-owned smartphones and tablets. We lower the manageability hurdle by delivering a single application from which employees can access all their productivity apps and services.”
According to a recent report from IT research firm Gartner, half the enterprises surveyed in the firm’s primary research studies intend to move to all BYOD for smartphones in 2017, and mobile telecom spending will jump 16 percent from 2013 to 2016.
With the enterprise-managed Business Phone service, IT can safeguard call logs, voice mail, texts, contacts and other data within the encrypted Mobile Workspace.
The ability to retain access to business phone data, as well as billing records, also helps to ensure compliance with regulatory and legal requirements.
Additional savings can be realized by reducing wireless service costs through the ability to deploy shared-minute plans and pool employees’ minutes-of-use (MOUs).
With Box for Dell, employees can access enterprise files and folders securely across a range of devices and workspaces to share documents, collaborate among teams and edit content directly with existing applications.
Additionally, the EMM platform integrates with Microsoft Office 365 to offer cloud-based, hosted business-class email and shared calendars to elevate mobile employee productivity wherever they are.
“The best way to get started with mobility is to create a long-term plan with phases of adoption based on business priorities and employee requirements,” Foster said. “We recognize that organizations may not be able to deploy a massive enterprise mobility management undertaking out of the gate, which is why we have taken a prescriptive yet modular approach with the ability to add a la carte services as needs dictate.”