US : KACE announced the industry’s first appliance-based systems management solution for Apple’s iPhone.
The new technology allows IT administrators and business users alike to provision, configure, and control policies for the iPhone as they would with any other managed device.
This news comes on the heels of Gartner’s recent acknowledgement that the iPhone 3G is ready to serve business customers as an alternative to mobile devices, such as Blackberry. The iPhone technology complements KACE’s already comprehensive support for Mac systems.
“Apple is quickly carving out its place in the enterprise. The business world is recognizing the benefits of Mac OS X, and now the powerful iPhone technology,” said Marty Kacin, CTO and co-founder of KACE. “IT administrators need to adapt to this new ‘multiple OS world’ and be ready to manage heterogeneous environments on a dime. KACE systems management appliances give administrators the tools they need to seamlessly and easily manage a range of enterprise platforms.”
The award-winning KBOX family of appliances (http://www.kace.com/products/) offers seamless systems management support across Mac, Linux, and Windows operating systems. This is especially important as a large number of IT departments now host heterogeneous environments and many are choosing Mac as an alternative to Windows Vista, as highlighted in a recent King Research survey. The survey showed 42 percent of the respondents said they would consider deployment of alternative operating systems, such as Mac and Linux, in order to avoid a migration to Vista. The full report, titled “Windows Vista Adoption Trends: A Survey of Technology Professionals,” is available at: http://www.kace.com/pdf/AR-King-Vista-Survey-2.php.
Understanding the need to manage complexity within heterogeneous IT environments, KACE offers an appliance-based approach that allows IT administrators to cost-effectively manage multiple operating systems with the ease provided from a single interface. KACE’s new iPhone support complements Apple’s iPhone Configuration Utility, providing centralized and easy management of multiple configuration profiles and tools to apply them based on policies across the enterprise.
New KBOX Systems Management appliances capabilities include:
- Assigning iPhone profiles across user groups to meet different access needs, for example, by function or geography;
- Distribution of profiles by e-mail;
- Self service profile downloads available from the KBOX user portal.
The new iPhone support complements existing KBOX Mac OS X management capabilities, including hardware and software inventory, patching, software distribution, remote administration, help desk, and asset management. KBOX fulfills all of the systems management needs from initial computer deployment to on-going management and retirement in a mixed computing environment, allowing IT departments to save considerable time and money. iPhone management will be available in beta this September.
“Today’s dynamic workforces are increasingly becoming reliant on mobile devices, like Apple’s iPhone, to more effectively achieve organizational goals. Clearly KACE understands the importance of simplifying and standardizing IT management of mobile devices, and has taken a bold leap in extending its KBOX appliance solutions to address the growing popularity of the iPhone,” said Steve Brasen, analyst for Enterprise Management Associates. “With this announcement, KACE reaffirms its commitment to provide broad heterogeneous support while not compromising on depth of functionality or cost effectiveness.”
For more information join KACE for a one hour webinar titled, Best Practices for Managing iPhone and Macs in the Enterprise taking place Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 11 am Pacific Time. Sign up here:
