Mobile Device Management: don’t fall for the “Key players”, unwieldy white elephants
27th of October 2020
Soti, 42Gears, VMware, ManageEngine… So many solutions considered leaders in the Mobile Device Management market, present in all MDM software comparisons and always in the first Google advertising results when you are looking for a solution to manage your fleet of professional mobile devices. But don’t be fooled by first appearances and do your research further. Because if these giants are ubiquitous on the web and continuously listed in the “Top 10” or “Best mobile management solutions” for a successful mobile strategy… It’s because they have an equally huge budget to inject in advertising, marketing, and paid articles highlighting their product.
So, why avoid falling for it and give the new MDM players a chance?
Attractive sites, well-established notoriety… You feel reassured and create an account with them without waiting. But here it is: dedicated to large companies and large mobile fleets, these complex software are full of hard-to-grasp features and require sometimes thousands of dollars in training days, certification programs for your employees, or hours of videos to watch for self-training. Training and (maintaining) knowledge can therefore be extremely time consuming and costly. This is probably why some people don’t even accept companies with too few mobile devices to manage (like Citrix with 25 users minimum, or Hexnode with 15 devices minimum to register).
To compensate, some of these MDM market leaders offer very attractively priced “entry-level” packages that provide the basic functionality of an MDM solution (such as application and password management). But the problem is that if you are missing a feature, the price quickly doubles or even triples to move up to the next package. For example, Miradore offers a free package, but if you just need geolocation or send a message to a user, you can upgrade directly to a package at €2.50 per month per device.
It is also difficult to find a direct contact person. As in any big company, the services are numerous, the employees even more, and it is not possible to be accompanied by the same person. Questions about using the MDM solution? You will be referred to tutorials. Need a little flexibility in terms of means or payment terms? A new feature request, slightly customized for your company? You’ll have a hard time being heard.
So how do you avoid becoming a cog in a huge MDM machine? Opt for a less well-known fleet management solution, not necessarily listed among the “Best MDM Solutions” or in the “Top 5 Tablet Management Software”. Look at the results of unbiased, unpaid competitions, such as the Mobility Awards 2019, electing each year after extensive testing the “Best Management & Security solution for mobile devices”.
TinyMDM "Best Management & Security solution for mobile devices"
MDM solutions dedicated to small and medium enterprises combine security and ease of use. In addition to requiring no special knowledge and no training at all, all the functionalities are available in a single package, accessible to all. If you are missing a feature, you will be able to talk about it to your privileged point of contact: not only will it be added to the roadmap, but it will also be included in the offer. For TinyMDM for example, whose offer is 19€ per year per device, all the new features have been added free of charge at the request of customers (as witnessed by the University of Munster and GR8 Security).
By choosing a human-sized MDM to manage your professional devices, you ensure a successful mobility management strategy in your company.