Visage, Fixmo Partner on BYOD Solution

Mobile risk management (MRM) specialist Fixmo and enterprise mobility management company Visage Mobile are partnering to offer an integrated solution combining enterprise mobility intelligence, data security and risk management for businesses adopting bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiatives.

The two companies will co-market the as-of-yet unnamed offering and said they plan to leverage their established channel partner communities for distribution to public and private organizations.

Fixmo combines MRM and corporate data security to identify and manage the security issues introduced by BYOD programs, while Visage focuses on mobile inventory and carrier data to provide visibility and governance of BYOD users.

Chris Hazelton, research director for mobile and wireless at IT analytics firm 451 Research, said organizations are looking for tools that not only help them manage mobile devices and users, but also help ensure they remain in compliance with corporate security policies.

“As employee-owned devices continue to invade the enterprise, the ability to understand the security and financial risks exposed by each user, device and application becomes increasingly important,” Hazelton noted.

The BYOD trend is arguably the hottest topic in the business technology world at the moment, with companies from Extreme Networks (NASDAQ: EXTR) to Centrify to ADTRAN (NASDAQ: ADTN) all offering solutions to drive implementation and reduce IT headaches.

According to recent surveys by Dimension Data and Sophos, IT departments in SMB and enterprise environments are struggling to adapt to BYOD, although they are aware of the benefits BYOD and connected mobile workforces bring to the company.

Nearly all (93 percent) of SMBs are integrating remote working policies into their security provision and 52 percent are expecting to improve security precautions to mitigate additional risks posed by remote working, the Sophos survey found.