Vodafone India on Wednesday launched a solution, Secure Device Manager, for its
corporate clients which will allow enterprises secure company data on
mobile handsets and tablet PCs of their employees.
Vodafone India is
the first Indian telecom operator to launch such a service. Its UK
parent offers the solution in the UK and Germany and has 18,000 active
users.
"With the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) concept picking up
pace, increasing number of people prefer smartphones and tablets to
access the company's data. Securing these devices, and the data has now
become critical," Vodafone India Director (Business Services) Naveen
Chopra told reporters on a video conference.
BYOD is a policy now
being followed globally by corporates, where employees are allowed to
bring personally owned mobile devices to work place and using it to
access company resources like email, file servers and databases as well
as their personal applications and data.
Vodafone Secure Device
Manager provides IT managers a management console which allows them to
remotely manage security policies, device settings, certificates,
applications, operating system etc, he added.
Clients would be charged at Rs. 175 per device per month and they can scale depending on the requirement.
It allows users to remotely lock or wipe all information from their smart devices in case the device is lost.
Asked
how the company would compete with IT services firms which typically
provide such solutions, Chopra said Vodafone's reach and capability
would help the company service their clients better.
Business
Services, which constitutes about 10 percent of Vodafone's revenues in
the country, over voice and data services over wireless and fixedline
networks. It has over 3.6 million corporate customers in India.
According to industry estimates, companies spend 2-5 percent of their IT budgets on security of devices.
While
earlier IT security was limited to desktops and laptops, increasing
popularity of mobile workforce and usage of smartphones and tablet PCs
is forcing IT administrators to seriously consider securing corporate
information and applications used on such mobile devices.
Also, the increasing trend of BYOD is also fuelling demand for securing these devices to protect sensitive corporate data.