Google Apps Gets Remote Android Device Management

Google Apps and Google Android are two key areas of the search titan’s enterprise initiative. And now the two meet as Google announces the addition of Android smartphone management to the Google Apps cloud suite. Here’s the scoop.

This kind of management was portended back in July 2010, when Google Apps enhanced its mobile device control for all smartphone platforms. According to the Google Enterprise blog entry, with this update, administrators of Android 2.2 devices get management options in the Google Apps control panel like:

That same blog entry says that if the employee leaves the company, you can remove corporate info and let them use the device as if it were their own — which it may well be. The policies are enforced by way of a Google Apps Device Policy application, free to all Google Apps Premier and Education Edition customers.

Google claims 200,000 Android device activations per day — an impressive statistic by any definition. But are MSPs remotely managing Android devices for their customers? If so, we’d like to hear more about the early opportunities… and challenges.

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