Today,
Companies can buy EMM from an established vendor. Many companies have yet to make a selection for mobility management. While there were over 100 vendors in the last Gartner magic quadrant, a majority of the vendors were start-ups. Companies were reluctant to place their faith in a vendor that could disappear overnight. Fiberlink was an established vendor with a good track record but the company needed to expand its sales channels. It now has IBM’s financial backing and brand to take on the market. Companies that were reluctant to choose a start-up now have choices of established vendors such as IBM or Citrix, which acquired Zenprise.
IBM’s aggressively filling the gaps. It’s acquired 8 companies in the past 18 months. At the rate of one acquisition nearly every two months, IBM is constructing a wide portfolio of capabilities in a short period of time. This is the same acquisition Cisco had in its growth phase. It proves they are serious about the space. It also proves the are moving at a faster pace than most companies of that size.
The acquisitions aren’t all small. Many of IBM’s previous acquisitions in the mobile market, such as Worklight, have been technology and talent based acquisitions. In the case of Fiberlink, IBM is also acquiring a solid customer base of brand. Fiberlink has 3,500 customers and the types of customers range from small businesses to government agencies.
Despite the rumors of MDM’s demise, corporations have just begun to embrace mobility management. Mobile device management has evolved into enterprise mobility management. IBM had an offering but it was considered weak. Fiberlink offers a solid company that provides mobile device management, application management and containerization. The company is known for its ease of use and ease of installation. It also has FISMA certification to minimize security concerns. IBM will need to build a private/hybrid cloud offering for those customers that refuse to purchase public cloud-based services. This acquisition is a good deal for both parties.
This acquisition highlights three trends. First, competition for the leaders in the market, such as Airwatch and MobileIron, continues to grow. Secondly, it highlights that 2014 will be the year of consolidation. The first wave of consolidation has already begun. We’ve seen leaders in the MDM space add functionality such as mobile application management. Consolidation will continue to bring larger more established vendors into the market. Finally, it further validates that the EMM category is a meaningful business but it creates investment risk for EMM IPOs. The EMM market will evolve to a suite of mobile solutions that include security, analytics, etc. As this evolution happens, IBM will be well positioned to capitalize on this transition.
