Market is ripe for Juniper's mobile device management offering

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 27 October 2010 11:03

IT Industry - Strategy

Despite the rapidly growing popularity and capability of smart mobile devices - smartphones and tablets - neither the level of threats nor the prevalence of security is anywhere near the same as that in the world of desktop and laptop/netbook operating systems. Yet.

COMMENT- With the sales of smart mobile devices tipped to exceed sales of personal computing devices in the next couple of years it is inevitable that the huge global industry of exploitation will shift its focus to the new platforms. For example Morgan Stanley is forecasting smartphone sales will exceed PC sales, worldwide by 2011.

No business, and few consumers would dream of operating their PC without antivirus software, and for parents some sort of parental control software is the norm. Both markets will need comprehensive security and management products in the very near future.

Juniper Networks, however, believes that the business model for providing protection for smart mobile devices will be radically different from that in the PC world, especially in the consumer market.

With the launch of the Junos Pulse Mobile Security Suite - claimed to be the first comprehensive solution for providing security and management of mobile devices - Juniper hopes to both define the model of this new market and dominate it.

Junos Pulse Mobile Security Suite has been formed from the integration of the Junos Pulse client application platform for mobile devices, Junos SSL-VPN software and access control software running on Junos Pulse and a suite of mobile device management tools that have been sold for the past five years by US company, SMobile Systems, which Juniper acquired in July.

According to Sanjay Beri, vice president and general manager of Juniper's access and acceleration business unit, no other vendor offers the breadth of functionality of the Junos Pulse Mobile Security Suite, all others offer only discrete elements of its functionality.

"We expect the desktop anti-virus companies to release versions of their products for mobile devices but there is none that will go to an enterprise with a slew of products for connection, endpoint security, monitoring and management, and across all devices. That is what we believe an enterprise wants," he told ExchangeDaily.

"In the consumer market a lot of our competitors sell products [eg antivirus and parental control] direct but our model is to enable service providers to offer a service. We think there is an opportunity for service providers to inject themselves into market that is new and that is rising and in whch they own the billing. So they have a unique packaging opportunity and a unique relationship."

As mobile voice revenues stagnate and as competition drives down the price of mobile data while surging usage demand ever more investment in network capacity, service providers are all desperately seeking ways to move up the value chain. Security and management services would seem to present an ideal opportunity.

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