Construction company Arrow International opts for IBM mobile device management

Rolls out IBM’s MaaS360 cloud-based enterprise mobility management

New Zealand construction company, Arrow International, has deployed IBM’s MaaS360 cloud-based enterprise mobility management and security system for its fleet of more than 500 mobile phones and tablets used by staff operating from ten offices around the country.

Before implementing Maas360 the IT team had no visibility over whether someone had jail-broken their phone, or if the device had a virus, exposing Arrow’s intellectual property to the risk of theft or loss.

MaaS360 automatically detects and remediates malware on employee mobile devices and integrates with Arrow’s IT systems enabling it to use existing applications on mobile devices.

Arrow IT manager, Wayne Broekhals, said: “In addition to productivity gains, cost savings are considerable due to a reduced administration overhead, especially for devices that are stolen or have malware on them, since we can handle everything remotely.”

He added: “We are starting to implement Samsung’s Knox security layer to protect our intellectual property. The construction sector is highly competitive – and my understanding is that MaaS360 works very well with that.”

Broekhals told Computerworld that the company had looked at Citrix’s XenMobile offering and VMware’s Airwatch mobile device management offerings before settling on MaaS360. “We pretty much wrote off Citrix because the cost would have been too high for the number of devices we needed to manage,” he said. “Airwatch and Maas360 were reasonable comparable in cost but in our view MaaS360 was easier to deploy and it also had antivirus functionality built-in.”

John Vine Hall, security business unit executive, IBM Australia and New Zealand, said: “Mobility solutions offer significant benefits in cost savings and productivity to dispersed workforces like construction, but devices and apps must be efficiently and securely managed - detecting devices is only half the answer. The cloud-based MaaS360 replaces manual processes so IT teams can focus on the other areas that are adding value to their business.”

Installation of the software required each mobile device to be returned to head office, but once that had been done, Broekhals said applications could be added without needing access to devices, as had previously been the case. “It makes IT more agile and we are no longer having to spend money on couriers getting devices returned to head office.”

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