Okta focuses MDM on users, not devices Identity-management outfit Okta is prepping a mobile device management solution that puts users first in both its design and licensing Okta, the identity-management startup created by former Salesforce engineering folks, has sought to make a name for itself by offering a one-stop identity management solution for enterprises turning to cloud-based apps. The companys newest move, though, is into a field that should have no room for a newcomer: mobile device management. The new offering, called Okta Mobility Management, works as an outgrowth of Oktas existing identity platform. With that system, a single user sign-on can be used to access multiple cloud-based applications. Knowing what applications are already used within a company makes it easier for Okta to provision the appropriate mobile apps for users mobile devices. Todd McKinnon, Okta CEO, discussed in a phone call how this constituted a person-centric, rather than a device-centric, approach to the problem. When [a company] hires a new employee, and they bring their own phone to work, they want to take the information thats already in the HR system and use that to drive which native apps get provisioned on the mobile device. Oktas advantage is how existing users of the companys solutions have already allowed the software to build a working picture of the companys business processes -- what apps are used where. This information can then be leveraged automatically, along with custom-built deployment rules, when provisioning mobile devices. Provisionings arent just about which features of the phone or what apps can be used, but also include automatic configuration for things like access to corporate email or other internal resources -- and also the automatic de-provisioning of the device when the user leaves the company. Business-specific apps are placed in a container and managed there, courtesy of existing OS-level hooks. This is done in lieu of, say, forcing the user to work with custom-built apps, an approach McKinnon describes as completely broken. Theres a lot of money going into [enterprise mobility management], McKinnon said, and a lot of our [identity management] customers didnt even have a solution, so we think its still pretty early in this market. We also noticed the ones that had a solution, they hadnt deployed it fully or they werent that wedded to it, because its built on an old paradigm where the company would own the device. Many other MDM solutions, he noted, charge per device, whereas Okta is a flat per-user cost. Oktas solution is reminiscent of one approach suggested by a 2013 Forrester analysis that condemned many of the conventional MDM approaches as heavy-handed. In their stead, the report predicted, policy-based approaches over apps and data would become preferred because they are seamless to the end user. Much of this, McKinnon noted, has only become possible because of recent platform-level additions to iOS and Android. A common barrier for any newcomer to a given field is giving entrenched customers of existing solutions a motive to switch away. But McKinnon doesnt see displacing existing solutions as the main way for Okta to make a dent: I think well have a lot of success in greenfield [deployments], he said, where companies want a cloud solution, per-user, and havent made a choice yet. I think well compete with the legacy vendors in some instances, and in some cases they might win and in some cases well win -- and in some cases well integrate with them. To that end, Okta isnt seeking to compete directly with the likes of Ping Identity, the outfit that seeks to allow enterprises to use smartphones as an enterprise-wide single-factor authentication device. Nor is the company out to compete with enterprise app stores for mobile user: We dont have every bell and whistle of an enterprise app store, but you can imagine well enhance it over time. Like:facebook/MyItTurn Join:facebook/groups/myitturn
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 20:01:23 +0000
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