MobileIron CEO: Windows 10 Lets Us Manage PCs Like Mobiles
INTERVIEW: MobileIron CEO Barry Mainz tells Silicon about PC management, the rise of IoT and why it is better equipped than some of its rivals
“[A lot of companies believe]’If it doesn’t happen to me it’s not happening’,” says Mainz. “It’s only when you suffer one material breach or someone you know has one that you act. We are constantly approached by customers who felt they could just get away with standard security and realise they’re wrong.”
And as recent botnet hacks have shown, IoT is going to result in plenty of attack surfaces and a lot more devices to manage.
Mainz says that as the cost of processing power and connectivity come down, and standards are agreed among the industry, IoT will take off – even of some have security concerns.
IoT complications
“IoT is a multi-part thing,” he argues. “I used to work with Wind River Systems and we had 2,000 people worldwide and we called ourselves the ‘Internet of expensive Things’ because our software sat on planes and industrial systems.
“I was dealing with a large petrol company who had been doing IoT for a long time but it took them nine months to update the system with USB sticks. The app lifecycle is where [IoT] can make a real change [in terms of] the speed of update.
Loading ...“Where EMM can help is secure lifecycle management. We can update applications over the air. We can do conditional access. We can do a lot of the things that the current players can’t deal with it.
“I don’t profess to say what we do is unhackable but we feel we are the most secure and are most confident in what we do.”
MobileIron has numerous competitors, including BlackBerry which not only has a strong legacy in the sector but is also adding more strings to its bow. Others, including Microsoft and Samsung, are also getting in on the act. Can MobileIron compete as a pure play EMM provider without offering anything else?
“We don’t have to provide more,” says Mainz, claiming a focus on quality and value will see it thrive, citing breadth of access and range of partnerships as evidence.
“One of our main competitors is feeling the pressure of a large acquisition and it’s playing to our advantage. Sometimes these acquisitions are like bad cholesterol you’re injecting into your veins and you die.”
