Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite Big Channel Play

Microsoft (MSFT) expectedly unwrapped the long-awaited Office for iPad productivity suite last week as downloadable, standalone versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint available at Apple’s (AAPL) App Store. But while Office for iPad drew most of the attention and near all the woo-hoo’s, the vendor’s in-tandem unveiling of its Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) cloud service bundle is likely to play far more favorably with channel partners. Indeed, at the suite’s debut last week, Microsoft chief Satya Nadella called EMS "the most strategic piece of what we are doing in support of enterprises."

Essentially, EMS includes three primary services—identity and access management delivered by a new premium version of Azure Active Directory; mobile device management (MDM) and mobile access management (MAM) through Windows Intune; and, access to Microsoft cloud app delivered by Azure Rights Management Services. With all three solutions in tow, admins can establish a single sign-on and set up and implement a BYOD policy, including managing employees devices and controlling access to data.

The fee? Microsoft is charging $4 per month per user for the entire ESM package for up to five devices in an introductory promotion that runs until September, when volume licensing customers will pay $6.50 per user per month.

What’s unique about EMS is all three of these solutions delivered under one hood, which is why partners can make hay with it.

In an online post following the Office for iPad debut, Microsoft Windows Server and System Center Corporate Vice President Brad Anderson said Microsoft “assembled the EMS to help our customers supercharge their Enterprise Mobility capabilities with the latest cloud services across MDM, MAM, identity/access management, and information protection.”

But that wasn’t all. Anderson called “EMS is the most comprehensive and complete platform for organizations to embrace these mobility and cloud trends,” pointing out that “other offerings feature only disconnected pieces of what is needed. When you examine what Microsoft has built and what we are delivering, EMS is simply the only solution that has combined all of the capabilities needed to fully enable users in this new, mobile, cloud-enabled world.”