HP Tries to Ease SMB Mobile Device Management

Smartphones have been overrunning many small and medium businesses. Companies like the productivity functions that the devices offer but are not as content with their management functions. HP is working with cellular carriers to try and fill that void.The company announced HP Cloud Services Enablement for Device Management as a Service (HP CSE for DMaaS - now that is quite the mouthful, isn't it?), which is designed to help businesses manage employee smartphones, laptops and mobile devices. Through a secure, customizable web portal, IT staff can use cloud based services to manage mobile devices. They can configure devices, distribute applications, diagnose problems, enforce security policies and back-up and restore data.

The core of the HP solution is provided by Mformation Technologies Inc., which provides management software to more than 40 communications services providers. HP has a reselling agreement with the firm and now developed a version of the software that works with HP's cloud architecture, HP Aggregation Plaform for SaaS.

While businesses see a need for such tools, a number of steps need to take place before they can take advantage of them. HP has to convince various carriers to use its service. The carriers will then to deploy, price and package their management services. Customers will then need to check to see if the HP based service works with their mobile devices.

HP has hit upon a hot area. Mobile devices are becoming as common as PCs and laptops in many companies. However, often they do not have a good handle on how employees are using the devices, so a cloud based management service may prove to be beneficial. However, a lot of groundwork needs to be put in place before small and medium businesses will find services that meet their needs