Mobile Device Management (MDM) Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) Mobile Device Management

Mobile Device Management, MDM (in the understanding of Gartner) - software for working with corporate systems using mobile devices.

The MDM funds market has consolidated somewhat in recent years, but it still presents a wide range of tools and services. Among them are mail servers with built-in MDM functionality, cloud services, and tools that can be integrated with large-scale packages for managing systems. With the widespread adoption of BYOD practices, both small companies and large businesses will be able to find the right product both for their needs and for their budget.

IDC analysts consider MDM solutions coupled with mobile application and mobile content management technologies and call these products the general concept of Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM).

What is expected of mobility

Each party has its own claims, Citrix

Fragmentation of devices, applications, and data

2024

The Russian market for mobility management solutions grew by 55% over the year and reached 1.54 billion rubles

At the end of 2024, sales of solutions for mobility management (Enterprise Mobility Management, EMM) in Russia amounted to about 1.54 billion rubles. For comparison, a year earlier, the volume of this sector was estimated at 994 million rubles. Thus, growth was recorded at 55%, as stated in the Strategy Partners review, published on June 2, 2025.

Analysts note that the market for enterprise mobility management software largely depends on the availability of affordable and user-friendly applications. In 2021, sales of such solutions amounted to approximately 907 million rubles, of which 832 million rubles, or 92%, fell on foreign products. At the same time, the share of domestic suppliers was small - only 8%, or 75 million rubles. In 2022, due to geopolitical tensions, the market volume decreased to 475 million rubles, but at the same time the positions of domestic players sharply strengthened, the share of which jumped to 46% (218 million rubles).

In 2023, the sector restored positive dynamics, exceeding the indicators of the pre-crisis 2021. Russian companies continued to strengthen the situation: for example, in 2024 their share reached 82%, which is equivalent to 1.26 billion rubles in the total market volume. Foreign decisions brought 285 million rubles, or 18%.

The study says that in 2024 the potential for import substitution of Russian mobile OS was not realized, which is due to the lag in the introduction of regulatory requirements regarding the transition to Russian hardware and software solutions. This factor, as noted in the report, had a negative impact primarily on one of the main Russian players in this segment - the Aurora project.

In general, the list of leading suppliers of EMM solutions in Russia includes Astra Group (WorksPad), Research Institute of SOCB (SafeMobile), Kaspersky Lab (Kaspersky Security for Mobile), as well as foreign Microsoft (Enterprise Mobility product) and VMware (Worspace ONE). The listed domestic companies together occupied approximately 78% of the market in 2024.

Despite the fact that the EMM market is not a priority for IT infrastructure operators during import substitution, it retains a high growth potential associated with the low base effect and the availability of developed projects among individual large customers. Analysts believe that the overall reduction in budgets for the development of IT infrastructure in the corporate segment (B2B/Enterprise) by more than 20-30% may have an impact on further market expansion.

The authors of the study emphasize that the market is showing high growth rates due to factors such as digitalization, the spread of remote work and the growth of the number of mobile devices combined with a low base. At the same time, there are practically no fully functional competitors left in the sector under consideration in the Russian Federation. As a result, the Russian EMM segment lags behind the global one in terms of the pace of implementation of the corresponding software.

According to Strategy Partners analysts, in the future, the CAGR in the market under consideration will be at the level of 26%. As a result, by 2030, costs may increase to 6.06 billion rubles. At the same time, the share of Russian suppliers in total sales will rise to 94%: their revenue, according to forecasts, will reach 5.73 billion rubles. At the same time, the positions of foreign developers will weaken to 6%, and their result in monetary terms will amount to 337 million rubles. The industry has the potential to maintain high growth rates when leaders create more functional and ecosystem products.^[1]

Global Mobile and Application Management Systems Market Growth by 23% to $19.05 Billion

At the end of 2024, the costs in the global market for systems for managing corporate mobile devices and applications (Enterprise Mobility Management, EMM) reached $19.05 billion. This is almost a quarter - by 23% - more than in the previous year, when the volume of the industry was estimated at $15.5 billion. Such data are contained in the review of Grand View Research, which TAdviser got acquainted with at the end of May 2025.

EMM is a comprehensive platform for managing mobile devices, their applications, content and communications. Such systems are used to protect corporate data and provide convenient access to information. EMM platforms usually consist of a number of modules, including MDM (Mobile Device Management), MAM (Mobile Application Management), MCM (Mobile Content Management), etc. In particular, MDM allows you to control the settings of mobile devices by creating multi-level policies (disabling the camera, configuring passwords, remotely deleting corporate data in case of loss of the gadget, etc.). In turn, MAM is responsible for managing applications (limiting data exchange, defining policies). The MCM module allows you to control which applications can access or transfer corporate data and which applications can not.

One of the main drivers of the industry is the deterioration of the cybersecurity situation and the increase in the number of incidents related to leaks of confidential information. Attackers are constantly improving the tactics used to steal data. In particular, fraudsters are adopting advanced artificial intelligence technologies. EMM helps protect corporate information from accidental deletion or theft. In addition, EMM platforms ensure that only authorized devices and users can access cloud-based enterprise environments.

The growth in the prevalence of mobile devices has a stimulating effect on the market. Employees of companies are increasingly using such gadgets to access corporate information outside the office. This trend is intensifying due to the sharp transition to telecommuting, which began during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The market in question is segmented into software and services. In 2024, the software provided the lion's share of revenue - more than 63%. However, the direction of services is showing higher growth rates. Cloud and local sectors are distinguished by the model of deployment of EMM solutions. The first accounted for more than 56% of costs: such solutions provide flexibility and scalability, as well as economic advantages. Local products prefer those organizations that need maximum control over data and operations. In terms of EMM systems, the IT and telecommunications sector is leading with a share of more than 18% in 2024. Next come health care and retail. Geographically, the largest share of revenue came from North America - approximately 38%. Significant players on a global scale are named:

• Cisco Systems;
• SAP;
• Broadcom;
• AppTec;
• VMware;
• Citrix Systems;
• Ivanti;
• IBM;
• Microsoft;
• Micro Focus;
• Zoho;
• Matrix42;
• Sophos;
• BlackBerry;
• Esper.

In 2025, sales of EMM products worldwide are expected to reach $23.48 billion. Analysts at Grand View Research believe that in the future, the CAGR in the market under consideration will be 24.1%. As a result, by 2030, costs could increase to $69.12 billion.^[2]

2015

Corporate mobility management. Gartner view

Gartner Experts^[3] defines EMM as a class of software that supports the use of mobile devices in corporate business processes, which is realized by integrating hardware data into IT systems and security environments at all stages of IT lifecycle management. From a business point of view, EMM tools allow you to solve the following main tasks:

• preparing devices for operation - configuring mobile devices and installing applications for enterprise use;
• audit, monitoring and preparation of reports - control over the compliance of devices and applications with corporate policies, as well as tracking issues related to the management of computing and information assets of the enterprise (including accounting for the use of certain services and applications);
• corporate data protection - access rights management, data encryption, control of information flows, tracking of situations when users or devices become "unreliable" (dismissal of employees, loss of devices, unauthorized reconfiguration, etc.);
• User Technical Support - IT specialists can quickly solve the problems of mobile device use by employees of the organization.

At the same time, Gartner identifies four main technical categories of EMM packages, emphasizing that from the point of view of functionality they can intersect. Companies can use all of these features, or only some of them, according to their needs.

Mobile device management (MDM) is a platform lifecycle management technology that includes the functionality of accounting for used devices, managing OS configurations, managing mobile applications (including their initialization and deinitialization, remote cleaning, remote monitoring and control over failed situations). Typically, these tasks are implemented through the installation of the corresponding MDM profiles on the mobile device.

Mobile application management (MAM) ensures the operation of individual applications in accordance with corporate policies. Including here the tasks of installing applications from the centralized corporate repository and local application management on the device through the EMM console are solved. This functionality is especially necessary if the OS used on the device does not have the required level of control or security, or when the organization decides not to install the MDM agent on the device. MAM can also include a suite of analytical capabilities that help administrators and application owners evaluate the effectiveness of installed configurations. Quite often, the functionality of MAM and MDM is used together. Experts highlight two main options for implementing MAM. In the first case, EMM vendors offer proprietary mobile applications with advanced management capabilities. This typically applies to employee personal work applications, such as secure personal information managers for email, calendars, contact management, and secure browsers. In other cases, we are talking about application extensions created using software development tools (SDK and DDK) or methods for connecting additional components.

Mobile identification allows access to corporate applications only from "trusted" devices and users. To implement these capabilities, various technologies can be used (in a particular case, one or more): certificates (for users and devices), application coding, authentication, etc. Increasingly, EMM tools use various contextual information (for example, time or location) to help make decisions when providing access.

Mobile content management (MCM) allows users to get the information they need through their mobile devices. MCM functionality within EMM packages solves four main classes of tasks. Firstly, it is possible to safely save information received from external sources on a mobile device (attachments to letters, files from any, including cloud, repositories, etc.) Secondly, we are talking about connecting to corporate repositories and obtaining information from there. Thirdly, this is the use of push technologies to install, replace and delete files. Fourth, file-level protection.

Of course, EMM tools usually do not provide full functionality supported, for example, by DLP (data loss protection) and IRM (information rights management) products, but they can still provide the necessary level of security to implement certain scenarios for using mobile devices, and if necessary, they can be integrated into more powerful security systems.

The world of corporate mobility is very diverse, and vendors implement various approaches to solving EMM problems. Accordingly, there are many factors that affect the choice of the customer for his organization of a specific vendor and product. At the same time, one of the main aspects is to demonstrate the readiness of suppliers to quickly respond to changes in the mobile environment, support mobile applications that are critical for the organization and integrate mobile devices into the corporate IT infrastructure, for example, public key infrastructure (PKI), VPN networks, wireless communication environments, identity and access management platforms.

One of the main features of the mobile world is rapid changes in it, the presence of a large number of suppliers, hardware and software solutions. Accordingly, the requirements in EMM packages change rapidly. Gartner recommends that companies, in order to form the right EMM strategy, deal with the main trends in mobility development and closely monitor the changes that are taking place here. It is necessary to study the best practices for implementing corporate mobility, consider all possible scenarios for using the mobile environment in your organization, including BYOD, and formulate your own specific requirements. And only after that determine the list of potential EMM suppliers. The authors of the report emphasize that you do not need to choose a vendor based only on his position in the magic quadrant.

According to Gartner estimates, organizations use from 8 to 15 mobile applications for their employees, data from the summer of 2015. Previously, this list usually had basic horizontal tools such as email, contacts, calendars, but now more and more there are business-critical applications and data, as well as programs for certain roles. It is this trend that determines the increasing importance of managing mobile infrastructure, including in terms of security. This is no longer just about supporting hardware, but about managing applications and data used in close integration with the corporate IT system, and this determines the constant increase in the requirements for the EMM tool. Gartner highlights several basic feature sets of such packages.

Mobile Identity and Access

Mobile devices - smartphones, paychets, laptops - are no longer used in purely autonomous mode. And this is not just about the need for a network connection, but about the ability to work with corporate resources, which means that client devices must be authorized in accordance with corporate policies. Accordingly, mobile identification is a key component of EMM. Typically, digital certificates are used to solve this problem, but they can be supplemented by a set of other technologies, including biometric and token authentication. In the next stage, mobile identification will widely apply contextual methods that, in addition to determining users and devices, will control where and how the connection to the network is made (in the office, at home, in a public Wi-Fi network, within the country or outside it). According to the received data, a decision will be made on the level of access provided. Gartner experts expect contextual mobile identification to become the standard functionality of EMM products in the next three years.

File-level protection

Enterprise data protection on mobile devices is traditionally based on a whole set of information encryption options, as well as the use of corporate access management methods such as PIN use, timeout control, etc. However, today this set of funds is clearly no longer enough, since data can easily go beyond the IT perimeter controlled by the organization. A problem, for example, can be the use of personal mailboxes to work with corporate information or copying data to home PCs where the necessary protection is not available. Thus, the task arises of protecting the data itself, regardless of its physical location. It can be solved using information rights management (IRM) technologies, wider application of file-level encryption, including on the basis of the public key infrastructure (PKI).

Some EMM vendors are already integrating file-level security tools as well as IRM tools into the core functionality of their products, but other vendors are integrating EMM systems with more general-purpose identity and access management solutions already in use, creating unified administration points for data encryption processes and managing corporate security policies.

EMM as "glue"

According to Gartner, using EMM solutions is only the first step that organizations must take to improve the efficiency of their operations using mobile platforms by streamlining the management of employees' devices. The next step should be to expand the scope of mobility in a wide variety of business processes, creating a single client IT environment that includes both traditional PC infrastructure and mobile devices.

At one time, the widespread introduction of PCs into the business life of enterprises was largely provided by the methods of rather strict unification of the hardware and software being implemented, the promotion of which went "from top to bottom." This approach can be applied to mobile devices, but still industry experience shows it is not very effective in terms of business results. The penetration of mobile funds into the life of companies goes largely in the "bottom-up" direction, when the employees themselves want to use the tools and technologies already familiar to them in their production activities. Technically, supporting a heterogeneous client environment is much more difficult than in the case of a traditional homogeneous IT infrastructure, but at the same time you can get better results from the point of view of the company's main business. In this situation, EMM acts as an "adhesive" that allows you to connect a variety of mobile devices and applications to the business processes of the organization.

Unified IT Client Management

Customers still use different tools to manage PCs and mobile devices. Typically, companies deal with these tasks in separate implementation and technical support groups. Now there is a process of combining these two tasks both technologically and organizationally. Given this, Gartner believes that the upcoming release of Windows 10, which expands the MDM API capabilities introduced in Windows 8.1, may play a positive role. In particular, using this mechanism, it will be possible to manage personal computers through EMM tools, including using client agent programs. Although experts emphasize that this idea is not very easy to implement, since despite the narrowing of the scope of PCs, it is they who continue to support the vast majority of operations critical to the company.

But still, Gartner analysts are confident that the process of forming unified solutions for managing the client environment will continue, and it will not be limited to PCs, tablets and smartphones. In the very near future, a wide range of smart devices from the world of the Internet of Things (IoT) will be added to them. Already today, printers, watches, televisions and other equipment fall into the EMM control field. True, certain problems are already visible on this path, since so far many "smart things" are created on purely proprietary principles with minimal external control capabilities from the "non-manufacturer." However, such closeness is common for the initial phase of market formation. As the IoT space expands, integration tasks will come to the fore, and this will force manufacturers to switch to open standards.

2014: AirWatch bypasses BlackBerry to take lead

In early July 2015, the analytical company IDC released the results of a study of the global software market in the field of corporate mobility management. The only manufacturer with which sales of this software are declining is BlackBerry.

According to IDC estimates, the EMM solutions market in 2014 amounted to $1.4 billion, an increase of 27.2% compared to the previous year. Previously, experts predicted a rise of 22%. There is still a strong fragmentation and tight struggle in the market, where even a slight decline in the vendor can set it back several positions.

IDC 2014 EMM Market Power Mix

This happened with BlackBerry, whose revenue from the implementation of software in the field of corporate mobility management fell by 16.7% in 2014 - to $133.8 million. As a result, the Canadian company slipped from first to third place in the ranking of leading vendors, behind AirWatch and Good Technology.

The newly minted leader of AirWatch ended 2014 with revenue on the market of $161.1 million, which is 78% more compared to 2013. This rise was the highest among all manufacturers. AirWatch's market share is 11.4%.

Good Techonolgy's revenues in the considered segment of the software industry jumped 55.3% in 2014, reaching $136.8 million, corresponding to 9.7% of the global value.

According to IDC for 2014, the top five brands in the EMM market also included MobileIron and Citrix, which increased software sales by 26.2% and 47.2%, respectively - to $130.1 million (9.2% of the global market) and $114.2 million (8.1%). Next are SAP (8%), IBM (4.9%), Microsoft (3.1%), SOTI (3.1%), Sophos (2.9%) and Symantec (2.7%).

According to IDC analyst Stacy Crook, the high growth dynamics demonstrated by many companies in the corporate mobility management software market in 2014 shows that no manufacturer can relax.^[4]

2012

Gartner: The era of desktop computers is over

According to a Gartner study conducted at the end of October 2012, already in 2017, more than two-thirds of enterprises worldwide will switch to using mobile devices in working with corporate management systems.

Analysts are confident that more than 65% of enterprises will use a variety of solutions for mobile devices, in particular for tablets and smartphones, in working with corporate systems.

"The era of desktop computers is over. Employees are becoming more mobile and ready to do work anywhere, the main thing is that there is access to the corporate system, "said Gartner Vice President of Research Phil Redman. - High performance and ease of use of mobile devices are increasingly attracting large companies and their employees. The only stop at the moment is the security of work on mobile platforms, but the developers, in turn, are trying in every possible way to eliminate this problem. "

Gartner predicts that by 2017, 90% of businesses will support two or more mobile operating systems for their employees.

In 2011, many companies switched to iOS from Apple as the main mobile platform. Other mobile platforms are being considered and could be installed in the next 12 to 18 months. Thus, solutions supporting MDM, according to analysts, will soon be in growing demand.

One of the main reasons for the growth of this area was the rapid development of the tablet computer market. If earlier tablet users limited themselves to installing corporate mail, now more and more people want to implement mobile applications of corporate systems on their devices to work anywhere.

"In the next two years, we will see a sharp expansion of MDM platforms and solutions," Redman said. "Basically, organizations that themselves develop mobile applications and encourage their employees to use these solutions will move this direction."

Microsoft MDM Strategy

The heart of Microsoft's MDM strategy is its Exchange mail server. If you use Exchange Server to deliver mail to phones and tablets, you already use Exchange ActiveSync (EAS), which you can also use to relay policies to devices and control access to users, roles, and groups. And you don't even have to install Exchange Server inside your organization, since EAS is part of the Microsoft Office 365 cloud service. EAS currently supports Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, iOS and Android, and in Windows 8 and Windows RT this protocol is supported through the Windows mail client.

EAS is also at the core of Microsoft's cloud-managed InTune service tool. The latest version adds tools for managing EAS policies and integrating with Exchange servers to relay policies to managed devices. InTune also has a local store from which you can deliver applications to smartphones and from tablets with support for organization licenses and locally developed applications. The InTune pricing scheme, calculated by month and number of users, is attractive to small and medium-sized businesses, and its reseller version allows independent vendors ON and consulting companies to use InTune to manage devices across multiple client organizations.

RIM MDM Strategy

RIM's BlackBerry platform remains a trusted enterprise solution because the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) management platform provides a wide range of customizable device management policies. From BES, it is easy to keep BlackBerry devices under control, and its new Balance feature allows you to clearly separate work and personal data and ensures that the user does not lose their information if the corporate account is deleted on the personal device. RIM offers three different versions of BES: a free cloud version with a minimum set of policies for integration with Office 365, also a free version for small business BES Express and a full-featured BES option with a full set of policies, which pays not only for the server, but also for client access licenses.

The BlackBerry Mobile Fusion product additionally supports iOS and Android devices using the same management environment for both native RIM devices (including the PlayBook tablet) and third-party hardware. Mobile Fusion will also be the basis for a new generation of BlackBerry controls focused on the future BlackBerry 10 OS.

Symantec MDM Strategy

The crossplatform capabilities of MDM are key to a successful BYOD strategy, since they allow you to create a level playing field for users. One of the tools that can help with this is Symantec's Mobile Management for Configuration Manager (this is the new name for Odyssey's Athena product). When integrated with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manage, Symantec allows you to manage mobile devices along with PCs and laptops, while providing device status reports, selectively erase corporate data, and deliver secure email to Android hardware.

The MDM market is becoming increasingly important, and its products may become one of the key components of the IT strategy of many organizations - after all, it is clear that the BYOD reverse is not expected. MDM is not costly and has clear benefits - especially when operating in a regulated industry.

Read also

• Corporate Mobility Market Structure
• 1990.E2.80.931995 History of Russian corporate mobility
• BYOD_.D0.B2_.D0.A0.D0.BE.D1.81.D1.81.D0.B8.D0.B8 Corporate Mobility Bring Your Own Device - BYOD
• Review: Mobile Technology for Business
• Russian market of mobile applications for business

Notes