????當年黑莓（Blackberry）統治企業市場時，IT部門的工作是何等輕松。如今的辦公室已經被iPhone、Android手機以及大量平板電腦所充斥，而且越來越多的公司和機構甚至還鼓勵員工用“BYOD”（帶上你自己的設備——例如，購買任何你喜歡的設備）方式來包辦與工作相關的電話、電子郵件和其它溝通聯絡。

????如今，很多IT團隊都被不斷增多的個人設備所困擾，所幸還有不少公司在幫助他們。MobileIron是一家位于加州山景城的公司，它向客戶出售軟件，幫助他們跟蹤、管理及保護（這一點最重要）各種無線接入的手機和平板電腦。MobileIron的軟件囊括所有主流移動操作平臺，其客戶包括芝加哥大學（the University of Chicago）和半導體公司科磊（KLA-Tencor）等。

????利用MobileIron的軟件，公司技術人員可以監控大量手機，而且一旦移動設備落入不法分子之手，還能遠程清除設備上的敏感數據。MobileIron還向公司員工提供工具，以便他們自行完成Wi-Fi連接注冊、定位丟失設備等維護工作。如果員工遺漏了關鍵更新或是用非法方式操作了設備，系統會及時向IT部門發出警告。位于紐約的律師事務所Proskauer最近給600位律師配備了iPad，該公司高級技術戰略家馬爾科姆?科林伍德表示：“MobileIron能讓我們管理公司的iPad用戶。如果蘋果（Apple）發布了安全更新，我們能非常迅速地發現哪些員工已經升級到最新版iOS，我們還能跟蹤那些尚未升級的員工。”

????對移動設備進行管理的想法在好些年前就出現了。MobileIron創立于2007年，其競爭對手——位于加州紅木海岸的Good Technology則創立于1996年。但這一行業在過去一年半才開始火爆起來。今年早些時候，科技調查公司高德納（Gartner）發布了一份針對該產業的分析報告，包括了23家提供設備監控工具的公司，其中不乏提供全方位安全方案和企業級軟件的公司，如英特爾（Intel）旗下的邁克菲（McAfee）、SAP旗下的賽貝斯（Sybase）等。

????MobileIron表示歡迎競爭，該公司最近募集到2,000萬美元資金并在3個月內簽下了200家客戶。MobileIron的首席執行官鮑比?廷克稱：“我認為目前有機會打造一項獨立的、有利可圖的產業。（MobileIron目前并未盈利，不過其募集資金總額已達5,700萬美元。）我們的市場規模正在不斷壯大，發展速度也越來越快。”確實如此，隨著越來越多的公司給予員工日益多樣化的移動設備選擇權（Good Technology稱，公司客戶中，有60%已向員工提供了BYOD方案，還有30%則計劃在今年年底前推出該方案），移動管理行業將會相當繁忙。

????譯者：項航

????Life was a whole lot simpler for IT departments back when BlackBerrys ruled the workplace. Today's offices are populated with iPhones, Android-powered gadgets, and a slew of tablets -- and a growing number of companies and institutions even encourage employees to "BYOD" (bring your own device -- i.e., buy whatever you like) for work-related calls, e-mails, and other communications.

????Now a cadre of companies is stepping up to help beleaguered IT teams handle device proliferation. MobileIron, based in Mountain View, Calif., sells software that enables its customers -- including the University of Chicago and semiconductor company KLA-Tencor (KLAC) -- to track, manage, and, most important, secure a broad range of wireless phones and tablets on all the major mobile operating platforms.

????MobileIron's software lets a company's techies monitor their fleets of phones and remotely wipe a device clean of sensitive data if it falls into the wrong hands. It also offers a tool that allows employees to do some self-maintenance of their machines, such as registering for Wi-Fi access or locating a lost device. And if workers miss an important update or start using their devices in an unauthorized way, the system alerts the IT department. "MobileIron gives us the ability to reach out to our iPad users," says Malcolm Collingwood, senior technology strategist at Proskauer, a New York City-based law firm that recently outfitted 600 attorneys with iPads. "If Apple (AAPL) comes out with security updates, we can very quickly see who has upgraded to the latest version of iOS and then follow up with people who haven't."

????The idea of mobile management has been around a few years -- MobileIron launched in 2007 and rival Good Technology of Redwood Shores, Calif., in 1996 -- but the field has exploded in the past 18 months. Gartner earlier this year published an analysis of the industry and identified 23 companies offering device-monitoring tools, including full-service security and enterprise-software companies such as Intel-owned McAfee (INTC) and Sybase, an SAP (SAP) company.

????MobileIron, which recently raised $20 million in funding and signed up 200 customers in three months, welcomes the competition. "We think there's an opportunity here to build a standalone, profitable business," says Bob Tinker, MobileIron's CEO. (The company is not yet profitable but has raised a total of $57 million.) "We're in a market that just got really big really fast." Indeed, with more companies giving their employees more wireless choices (Good says 60% of its customers already offer employees a BYOD program, and another 30% plan to do so by the end of the year), there's plenty of work to go around.