If you’re a company that provides smartphones or tablets to your employees (and if you have a lot of employees), you probably find it hard to format and adjust each device according to company privacy and security policies. That is why Android is now launching a new deployment method called zero-touch enrollment to make life easier for companies and system administrators and make the rollout more seamless and secure. They are currently working with carriers and smartphone makers to make this accessible for any network or device.
Basically, what zero-touch enrollment does is gives companies the ability to configure the devices they have purchased before deploying it to the respective employees. It will remove the burden for the end users to actually be the ones to configure their device manually and also gives the company more control over what the device can or cannot do as per their company policy. All users have to do is sign in with the credentials provided and they will be able to access their work data and apps.
Currently, they’re working with carrier partners like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon in the US, BT, Deutsche Telekom in Europe, and Softbank and Telstra in Asia-Pacific. As for devices, among the first ones that can have zero-touch enrollment are Huawei Mate 10, Sony Xperia XZ1, and XZ1 Compact. But they are currently working on partnerships with Samsung, Huawei, Sony, LG Electronics, HMD Global Oy Home of Nokia Phones, BlackBerry smartphones, HTC, Motorola, Honeywell, Zebra, and Sonim.
As for the actual software to use for enterprise mobility management, the zero-touch enrollment currently works with systems like VMware AirWatch, BlackBerry, MobileIron, IBM, SOTI, GSuite among others. If you already use old enrollment methods, you can still mix it with the one that Android is offering.
SOURCE: Google
