Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM)

IT research firm Gartner, Inc. (IT) on Tuesday released the long-awaited results of this year’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM).

This year Gartner changed the report’s focus from mobile device management (MDM) to EMM, reflecting the shifts and changes in the EMM space over the past year.

Gartner has defined the EMM space as the following:

“Enterprise mobility management (EMM) suites consist of policy and configuration management tools and a management overlay for applications and content intended for mobile devices based on smartphone OSs. They are an evolution from previous generation MDM products that lacked application and content management. IT organizations and service providers use EMM suites to deliver IT support to mobile end users and to maintain security policies.”

Gartner said an EMM suite provides hardware inventory, application inventory, OS configuration management, mobile app deployment, mobile app configuation and policy management, remote view and control for troubleshooting, execute remote actions and mobile content management.

Click here for MSPmentor’s mid-year review of the EMM market

And now: Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for EMM

Gartner’s analysts evaluate EMM players on two criteria: completeness of vision (future success in market) and ability to execute (do they meet the needs of EMM customers?).

Leaders

To qualify for this Magic Quadrant, an EMM provider must have the “highest product revenue in the EMM market, several years of proven customer implementations, customer mind share and extensive partnerships with channel and other technology providers,” Gartner said.

Companies ranking in this year’s Leaders Quadrant: AirWatch, MobileIron, Citrix (CTXS), Good Technology and IBM (IBM).

Challengers

Gartner said that while companies placed into the Challengers Quadrant may have solid products, they often lack the product commitment to lead the space. They also fail to align themselves with the “most important EMM market trends, and do not have a road map that demonstrates compelling differentiation from other EMM products.”

Companies ranking in this year’s Challengers Quadrant: only one — SAP.

Visionaries

Visionaries meet the needs of customers that give a high priority to certain critical EMM areas by leveraging “unique capabilities in certain aspects of EMM,” the IT research firm said.

Companies ranking in this year’s Visionaries Quadrant: SOTI, Symantec (SYMC) and Sophos.

Niche Players

To keep things simple, Gartner said: “Niche Players are often excellent choices for organizations. Niche Players do not have the product completeness, revenue, mind share and track record of Leaders or Challengers. Their product road maps typically represent a strategy of following the market, rather than leading it.

Companies ranking in this year’s Nich Players Quadrant: Blackberry (BBRY), Tangoe, LANDesk, Absolute Software and Globo.

Gartner’s Market Overview for EMM

According to Gartner, the EMM market will continue to evolve, but with change comes challenges: “As enterprises’ use of mobility becomes increasingly complex, their requirements to protect data and support users will become more complex as well.”

The report noted several trends that will bring about change in the EMM market: the EMM buyer is moving to end-user computing, mobile application management helps maintain order amid chaos, software as a service (SaaS) helps organizations keep up, the EMM focal point will shift to data and unified endpoint management.

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