Mobile Device Manager goodness!

Usually i'd ignore Microsoft's emails that pop into my inbox but the latest one was a gem. They are introducing the new Microsoft System Centre Mobile Device Centre, which allows for excellent corporate control over Windows Mobile Devices which include remote wipe, remote restrictions of device capabilities (such as disabling Wifi, BlueTooth or the camera on the device), and it's all controlled through Active Directory policies.

What I found most interesting about the software was the new "mobile optimized" IPsec VPN connectivity that allows the device to connect to the HQ and allow the user to have access to "behind the firewall" services and applications. It's certainly no easy task at the moment to start using push email on these devices without accidentally putting a big hole in your security! For instance on our site, an engineer enabled access to our Outlook Web Access but also at the same time managed to allow unsecured access to Sharepoint because it was a Microsoft Small Business Server. This engineer was subsequently bundled into the trunk of a car and has not been seen since...

So the System Centre Mobile Device Manager provides a nice way of providing access to email through a secure VPN tunnel, and uses the following extra nice features:

• Authentication
• Session Persistence
• Fast Reconnect
• Internetwork roaming
• Standards based MobIKE, IKEv2 and IPSEC tunnel mode

This software is out mid 2008 apparently, but at the moment only three devices are supported at the moment. I got all excited when I first saw this, but then realised the software isn't out yet, and my lowly Orange E650v isn't supported yet anyway...

• TYTN II (Tilt)
• Samsung i600
• Palm Treo 750

Go here for the Microsoft site, and watch the Webcast!

Microsoft SkyDrive

After reading this link on theinquirer I decided to give Skydrive a go. Even though SkyDrive is in Beta it was a nice experience in terms of sharing files with a simple UI , and now due to the free upgrade to 1 GB the service is now pretty useful as a storage resource that I would consider using on a daily basis.

The best thing that struck me about the experience was that as an MSN user I logged straight in using my Passport account - Ah if only other sites were that simple!

So all in all we're going to be using this at work more and more when VPN isn't available at customer sites and we need to exchange files. Just be aware that it's generally going to be used as a file repository for techies and it's not a replacement for Sharepoint!