In Part I of this feature (see here) on Odyssey Software, we reported on the section of our conversation with company CEO Mark Gentile that covered the company's history, products, and plans for the future. For Part II, we asked Gentile to comment on each of his company's Seven Principles of Mobile Device Management (MDM).

We wanted Gentile to speak to what led his company to, in his words, compile these particular best practices to "assist enterprises in a more successful mobile device management software evaluation and deployment."

"During the past several years Odyssey Software has engaged with various enterprise accounts both in the pre-sales, investigation/research process as well as the deployment phase," Gentile said to PDAStreet. "The Seven Principles of Mobile Device Management are an accumulation of the most important and frequent issues that surfaced over many customer engagements."

Below, you'll find each of the seven princials in bold followed by Gentile's comments.

1. Leverage Your Existing Investments.

Choosing the correct mobile device management software that can easily integrate into existing enterprise management platforms means that organizations do not have to incur the added expense of standing up dedicated servers and consoles to run the mobile device management software as a completely separate system. Additionally, by leveraging the existing management platform, organizations can eliminate concern about introducing new points of failure in their environment - scalability, security and reliability are assured by the enterprise management platform.

2. Don't Compromise on Features.

There is currently not one MDM product that offers the breadth and depth to effectively manage the wide range of devices operating on all the various operating systems. Those that support multiple OS's typically do not offer the same level of comprehensive, robust functionality across each OS. While an enterprise might choose a MDM product that can manage multiple OS's, they are likely to only get basic, rudimentary functionality across many features, and will miss out on the value, performance and effectiveness that is available in a comprehensive, single OS MDM product.

Most enterprises have a variety of mobile devices in use within their company. It is important to select the correct mobile device/OS that is appropriate for the target application (e.g. line of business, field force or other important/critical mobile application) so that the IT department can provide the level of service and support to the mobile workforce, enabling the enterprise to achieve the anticipated ROI and productivity gains.

3. Stress Your Options.

Having participated in many large deployments, numerous competitive bids situations and experiencing the rigors of many large scale pilots, we have learned that not all products, which appear similar upon initial review, are up to the task and equal in real-life environments. A simple "checklist review" of functionality and features yields a playing field of multiple vendors with presumably the same capabilities and performance.

It isn't until an adequate pilot or full production deployment is done that an enterprise can assess if the MDM product can scale adequately to handle the initial quantity of devices or in the future when more devices will be added. We recommend an appropriately sized pilot to fully exercise the various software options under consideration, as well as a thorough review of reference accounts with deployments of similar size and management system.

4. You Don't Know What You Don't Know.

It isn't until the MDM product is rigorously piloted or deployed that the real life scenarios can be tested. A paper review of MDM products will not reveal the nuisances that come from specific deployment. Performing a rigorous pilot will help discover "what you don't know" and assist in leading to a "what if" evaluation, testing against the enterprises' experience of field issues and non-ideal situations, plan for the worst and test against it.

5. Time, Money and People Matter.

Any MDM deployment, or for that matter any IT project, is predicated on a reasonable ROI for the investment. However, identifying all elements that lead to costs savings are not always obvious. The cost to deploy a MDM product and related expenses is clear, but the hidden costs are in the time, money and people that factor an inefficient mobile device environment.

Benchmarking current costs relating to the time IT and Help Desk personnel spend on provisioning, trouble shooting and repairing devices, which typically return from the field; identifying the cost associated with field/mobile workers downtime because a device is not working properly or has to be returned; the cost of inventorying, preparing and deploying spares; and identifying the experience, usability and acceptance the mobile worker has with their mobile device are key elements to being able to show the tremendous impact of a highly robust, effective MDM product can have on the bottom line.

6. Securely Managming Devices Is Key.

According to IDC, Strategy Analytics and MCB Research, an estimated 12 million mobile devices are lost or stolen every year. That's an alarming statistic for enterprises that have business critical and/or confidential information on those devices. This is of particular concern to those organizations that must adhere to Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. Enterprises should look for an MDM product that can proactively restrict access to specific applications or data on the device, and reactively secure the device through a lock and wipe facility.

7. All MDM Products Are Not Created Equal.

A comprehensive and longer term MDM plan requires that the management capabilities deployed today can extend into the future as requirements and needs change. Predicting future requirements is difficult, but with proper planning and analysis, enterprises can find MDM products which are designed to be modular so new features can be easily added or migrate to an upgraded enterprise management platform, evolving to meet the new needs of the enterprise mobile workers, IT and Help Desk personnel. Not all MDM products are architected or capable of providing this level of flexibility to adapt over time.