When I spoke with Amtel CEO PJ Gupta in January, he described the dangers that unsecured mobile devices present for enterprise companies. The Holiday season had just ended and millions of new mobile devices were unwrapped and making their way toward those already overwhelmed business networks. Now one month later, the mobile device management (MDM) and telecom expense management software provider has released a free version of its MDM solution to help enterprises protect their business networks.

According to Gupta. the free MDM software will help protect some of the approximately 80 percent of enterprise companies that currently do not have any type of MDM solution in place. They’ll be able to use Amtel’s free MDM solution — Amtel Free Business Mobile Device Management — to enable mobile password security, detect compromised devices, gather device information and statistics, perform application discovery and build a central mobile inventory to manage all of their mobile assets. Businesses using the free service will also have access to a web-based console through which they can manage different Operating Systems (OS), including iOS and Android.

The ideas behind the free service is to expose enterprises to the basics of what MDM can provide them. Then companies can upgrade to Amtel’s premium MDM solution if they want to do things like wipe data from devices, generate alerts and expense reports with Amtel’s expense management capabilities, and have overall better control of their telecom expenses and use. It’s an interesting “freemium” strategy for a solution that’s extremely high in-demand. We’ll see if it pays off for Amtel, and if other MDM software providers follow suit.