The evolution to EMM
The MDM concept evolved into enterprise mobile management (EMM) due to an initiative by Gartner in 2014 to merge several existing strategies, as laid out in their 2014 Magic Quadrant for Mobile Device Management (MDM).1
This new term merges other sub-categories and strategies that were previously considered separate:
- MAM (Mobile App Management), which is management-focused to control the lifecycle of software on a device.
- MCM (mobile content management), which is management-focused to control the lifecycle of data on specific apps, agnostic to device,
- MIM (mobile information management), which is management-focused to control the lifecycle of data, agnostic to device,
Google eventually adopted an EMM management model with the launch of Android 5 and Android Enterprise (AE), providing native capabilities in their OS to manage it, deploy software, apply restrictions and safely allow access to corporate services.
Although there are different AE deployment models like iOS models, the high-level idea of centralized management and a sandboxed app model is the same. This is meant to ensure that an app cannot compromise the kernel of the device OS.
This approach to device management proved to be more efficient and compelling; usually, a single solution could provide the right level of security, control and visibility across all devices. At the same time, the organization can still provide its employees with secure access to corporate services, especially in the field.