A significant challenge in the “device management” industry is the absence of a widely accepted, unifying term that consolidates the field. The terminology used to describe the management of devices, computers, or network equipment varies widely. This ambiguity extends to related areas like fleet management of mobile devices, such as tablets and phones. Moreover, the categorization of IoT or embedded devices remains unclear, leading to diverse search terms like EMM (Enterprise Mobility Management) or MDM (Mobile Device Management), as well as “configuration management” solutions. These terms, while having distinct nuances, overlap significantly and are often interchangeable. As a result, even our engineers vary in their terminology, using “device management” or “configuration management” interchangeably. This highlights the complexity and variability in device management definitions and might make it difficult to find the solution that is most appropriate for your use case. Summarizing all this we can really state “A beloved child has many names”.
So what term would you suggest encapsulates our scope of work?
Below are a few definitions to show the breadth of terms that are used:
1. Fleet Management (in the context of devices)
Fleet Management typically refers to the management of a collection of electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, or laptops but is often used in an IoT context as well. It involves overseeing, organizing, and recording various aspects like deployment, maintenance, and software updates to ensure operational efficiency.
2. Configuration Management
This term is often used in IT to describe the process of maintaining system configurations, hardware, and software. It includes the detailed recording and updating of information that describes an enterprise’s hardware and software. This is crucial for managing changes and maintaining operational stability and security. Traditionally it is used for servers, but the qbee-agent is based on many of the configuration management principles such as state based configuration.
3. Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM)
This is a comprehensive approach that includes the management of mobile devices, wireless networks, and other mobile computing services in a business context. Enterprise Mobility Management solutions typically include application management, content management, and device management to ensure security and streamline management. With the advent of IoT embedded devices are more and more included in this category. One of our most recent customers actually found us by looking for this term.
4. Mobile Device Management (MDM)
This specifically refers to the administrative area that deals with deploying, securing, monitoring, integrating, and managing mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, in the workplace or basically anywhere in the world. The intent of MDM is to optimize the functionality and security of mobile networks while minimizing cost and downtime. While mostly used for mobile phones, smart IoT devices are definitely in scope of this definition. We do not use this term in qbee context very much but qbee is a “Mobile Device Management” platform as well.
5. Asset Management (IT Asset Management)
Asset management refers to the process of tracking and managing all physical assets of an organization, particularly IT hardware (like devices) and software. It involves the entire lifecycle of these assets, from procurement to disposal, ensuring they are used efficiently and securely. If you focus your naming more on the process and less on the hardware this definitely is a definition that fits qbee.io. We manage large asset fleets no matter where in the world they are.
6. Endpoint Management
This term is used to describe the process of securing and managing devices that are connected to an enterprise network. These endpoints could be desktops, laptops, mobile phones, and other network-enabled devices. Endpoint management helps in managing the compliance and security of these devices from a central platform. Most use cases for qbee include devices connected to enterprise networks. The platform is designed to play nicely with strict firewalls, NATs, proxies or any other enterprise network infrastructure.
7. Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)
An advancement of MDM and EMM, Unified Endpoint Management allows IT managers to control, manage, and secure all devices in an organization, both mobile and desktop, through a single management console. It merges capabilities of MDM, EMM, and PC management. This is the most complex definition, but qbee runs on desktop computers, tablets, and devices with different operating systems and chip architectures. So we can unify large parts of the enterprise endpoints. However, you would typically not use qbee for the management of standard desktop or laptop computers or mobile phones. So it might not be fully unified but the requirements for managing employee machines are often not very well aligned with the management of IoT devices and therefore few use the same tools for both.
We hope this overview has provided a deeper understanding of the various terms and definitions associated with device management. As the saying goes, “A beloved child has many names,” and this field is no exception. Regardless of the terminology you use, our goal is to offer you an industry-leading solution to manage your devices throughout their lifecycle in a secure, streamlined, and cost-effective manner. Feel free to reach out to us to discuss your specific needs—whatever you may call them.
