What is the difference between Managed Mobility Services and Mobile Device Management?
Managed Mobility Services
Managed Mobility Services (MMS) are concerned with managing the entire lifecycle of a company's mobile device fleet and have experienced account-based focus on proactive optimization before the corporate carrier billing cycle cuts. Savings is usually from $10 to $20 per device per month.
The Help Desk support is a key MMS feature because it removes the burden from a customer’s internal IT staff of having to support a potentially large number of mobile devices. Because the IT department is unlikely to be expert at supporting the mobile devices in use, supporting the devices themselves can chew up large amounts of time and resources. IT departments are typically staffed and funded to support a company's IT infrastructure, not its new mobile devices, leading to a vicious cycle whereby support all across the board suffers. By including Help Desk support as a part of mobility management services, we remove those burdens and costs from internal IT departments. It's a win for both the IT department and the device users themselves.
A good MMS provider will also bring with their scope a secure (SAAS) portal that will allow clients to access all their carrier(s) information from one location that is user friendly. The portal will have various reporting for management and accounting departments.
Mobile Device Management
Mobile Device Management (MDM) directly involves the devices themselves. MDM is typically client-server software. The MDM server is centralized and controlled by administrators, while the mobile devices are provisioned with MDM agent security software – the client.
MDM security software may allow for a device to be partitioned into personal-use and business-use silos. Partitioning a device prevents users from sharing company data on their personal accounts – and likewise prevents a user’s personal data from being shared to the company network.
The combination of MMS and MDM – decreasing costs while simultaneously increasing security – is only fully unlocked when MDM software is an integrated part of managed mobility services.