Every summer, we get a new magic quadrant from research and advisory company Gartner, which provides a clear overview of all the most important UEM tools. Most UEM providers look forward to this quadrant every year, because each vendor is compared on various factors: capabilities, vision, strategy, … The quadrant is an excellent way to determine the leaders in our sector. This year, there were some changes to the quadrant and our CEO Ulrik Van Schepdael listed them here for you.
1. Unified Endpoint Management is here to stay
We all still often use the term Mobile Device Management when talking about managing mobile devices, but a couple of years ago this was changed into UEM or Unified Endpoint Management. The reason for this acronym change is to clearly indicate that more traditional devices are also incorporated into UEM platforms. So, we now no longer refer to the MDM magic quadrant, but the UEM magic quadrant.
2. UEM platforms should integrate with Client Management Tools
In this year’s edition Gartner has also clearly indicated the need to integrate or co-exist with Client Management Tools. The UEM leaders in the quadrant all manage mobile endpoints, but the ones excelling, are those with the best capability to extend this to traditional PC’s and Mac’s.
I strongly believe there will never be a platform that is capable of managing ‘all devices’ properly: a modern UEM platform should not even invest in legacy Client Management techniques, that’s a waste of effort because it will probably never achieve the same level of detail and management granularity as for example SCCM, to name just one.
I would like to ask Gartner to go back in time and reinstate the Mobile Device Management Magic Quadrant. They should again include players such as SOTI and JAMF, who respectfully declare their focus. They do NOT to try to please ‘all’ but instead excel in their focus. And wouldn’t you rather work with a vendor who has a clear focus and stand out in what they do?
3. What the future will bring
The way I currently see this business evolving is that in the near future we will have a multitude of endpoint management platforms, all linked to a single device or OS vendor. The speed of evolution of each device and OS vendor makes it virtually impossible for this UEM industry to continue on its path of ‘doing it all’. So we will not see one platform taking control over every device in the workplace, and that’s ok! Our advice is to use the best platform for this specific device, OS or asset. You shouldn’t change a great management platform for something that’s less good but does “other things”.
That’s also the reason why we created an Employee Service Portal 2.0. This new workplace control center connects to multiple device management platforms and shows everything in one clear dashboard. With this portal, we no longer talk to the device but we talk to the management platform of the device. As a result you get a comprehensive overview of all assets used by that employee, irrelevant if this is Modern Management, Client Management or just Asset Management.
Please send an e-mail to sales@mob.co or call + 32 2 6699 500 if you want to know more about the Employee Service Portal!