The Moonshot, The Smartphone, Unified IT Operations and Unintended Benefits

“An iPod, a phone, and an Internet Communicator,” said then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs when introducing the iPhone on January 9, 2007. Since then, the Smartphone has replaced countless things that at one time or another everyone used, such as: 

We no longer need to have so many items to buy, store and maintain. Now all we have to do is click on our trusty friend and touch an app.  Many of these benefits were unintended, but there’s one thing that rises above all of the others; one of our most valuable assets remains constant: Time. 

“Time is free, but it’s priceless.You can’t own it, but you can use it.You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back.” 

~ Business author Harvey MacKay

The Moonshot and Unintended Benefits  

Back in the 1960’s, the United States had an array of problems: the Russian threat to national security, social unrest highlighted by the Watts Riots, the Vietnam war and more. The situation was bad, and there seemed to be no easy answers. From the time President John F Kennedy announced the race to the moon until the landing in 1969, several magical things happened, with unintended benefits; citizens became unified around a singular goal, reducing conflict and helping usher in the Civil Rights Act. The space program itself resulted in several innovations that have transformed life on earth: GPS, CAT scans, freeze dried foods, solar panels, cordless vacuums and more. The unintended benefits of this single act have unified and transformed the world.  

The State of IT Operations: administrative silos, conflicting processes, separate tools and wasted resources  

In today’s enterprises, IT Operations perform critical functions such as employee enablement, patching, business software distribution and reducing the corporate attack surface available to attackers. Due to the lack of unified tools, they have been forced into silos, each with specialized tools, processes, and staff.  

Add in today’s acute cyber security skills shortage and it’s obvious that these time-robbing issues have resulted in unmet needs. Enter Unified Endpoint Management, a term coined by leading analysts to cover first generation agentless MDM solutions that use API’s to manage iOS, Android, Windows10 and MacOS. While these solutions have been broadly adopted, their limited platform coverage only served to create yet another management silo. IDC surveyed 340 IT leaders* to understand their main concerns when moving to a Unified Endpoint Management solution, and it was clear that they didn’t need more features or lower costs. The top 3 issues were found to be: 

The BigFix “Moonshot” to Redefine Unified Endpoint Management 

Is there a solution to the myriad issues created by today’s siloed tools? In its long-standing history in operations automation, tool consolidation and continuous compliance, BigFix has been the leading unified approach to endpoint management. With BigFix, people can now unify Mobile IT Operations with server, datacenter, desktop and cloud. On July 27th, HCLSoftware announced a major new release of its BigFix Endpoint Management Platform, extending automation and compliance to manage and secure mobile devices. BigFix is the leading enterprise endpoint management platform that provides full visibility, remediation, and automation for every endpoint including over 100 operating systems. Unlike complex tools that only cover a limited portion of endpoints and take weeks or months to remediate vulnerabilities, BigFix can find and fix endpoints faster than any other solution. 

• Automating management  with Zero touch device enrollment, configuration, remediation, compliance, posture assessment and analytics.   
• Unifying operations  with a single solution and methodology for every device, including iOS, IPadOS and Android.   
• Extending Security  of devices against threats to reduce data loss and increase compliance.  Setting passcodes; restricting devices and OS update policies; managing application blacklists and whitelists; configuring camera and print settings; and more.  

 Key features include:

5 ways the BigFix approach to Unified Endpoint Management can benefit you 

Earlier I wrote about the unintended benefits of major innovations. These are just some of the intended benefits that we are seeing with the BigFix approach: 

1. Time: a single solution and process will save time across your organization. 
2. Money: 40% to 60% savings on software cost alone. 
3. Collaboration: breaking down silos improves the ways teams work.  
4. Process simplification will reduce errors, manual steps and more. 
5. Simplified staffing/hiring: Instead of staffing multiple teams with separate skills to manage disparate tools 24×7 and around the world, a single common skill set is needed. 

Like the impact of the Smartphone and the Moonshot, will there be more unintended benefits? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section. 

“Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing,” Miles Davis. 

Time is your most valuable asset. With BigFix, we are giving you time back to invest in your enterprise bucket list! 

To learn more about BigFix, visit www.bigfix.com, request a free BigFix trial, or sign up for the BigFix Newsletter.

            * IDC 2020 Enterprise Workplace and Mobility Decision Maker Survey