I work in an IT department, and have the task to figure out how we control the 30 or so HTC legend and Desire's which will be handed out to our employees.
I would like to keep the phones as safe a passible, with centralized management so we can push apps to all phones, locate them, remote wipe and so on.
Problem 1: Does every employee need their own Google account? or can we use the same account on all phones?
it would take a long time creating them and keeping track of all the accounts.
Problem 2: how do we restrict them from installing apps themselves?
haven't found anything on this yet..
Problem 3: Is there any management software out there for android?
so far I am thinking about using Lookout for antivirus and locating lost phones, it does not support remote wipe for android,(it does for win mo). And using appbrain to push apps to all phones. will this work? or are there better solutions out there?
Why don't you guys go with BlackBerry instead? RIM has targetted their OS way more to these kind of business situations.
Anyway, if you have 1 google account for everyone. Everyone will have the same contacts, same calendar and same gmail e-mails.
The company is placed in Denmark, BlackBerry are not available to us, plus the phones have already been bought.
The Google accounts won’t be used for anything else than the market place. Mail, calendar is over exchange webmail.
Will the contacts be a problem?
Contacts won't be a problem if there are no contacts stored in it. Just gotta make sure nobody starts adding contacts in it. Or simply disable contact syncing all together, but you gotta do that on every phone.
I don't know about the other questions.
Ok, good. So no other problems with shared google accounts?
I would disagree with sharing one google account. There are many other aspects of the google account which are shared. Have you thought about cooking your own roms? You could remove the android market (and other apps) and make it more difficult to sideload apps.
I'd definitely suggest this route. Remove marketplace all together and sideload all of your necessary apps from apks.
OldCrowEW said:
I would disagree with sharing one google account. There are many other aspects of the google account which are shared. Have you thought about cooking your own roms? You could remove the android market (and other apps) and make it more difficult to sideload apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check out the enterprise products offered by Good Technologies.
OldCrowEW said:
I would disagree with sharing one google account. There are many other aspects of the google account which are shared. Have you thought about cooking your own roms? You could remove the android market (and other apps) and make it more difficult to sideload apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So it is best to have individual accounts for each and every one of the employees?
Don’t think cooking is an option for us, as it not will be allowed by our operator, with warranty and so on..
I will have a look at Good Technologies, on Monday. Does anyone have any experience with their products?
yes, def no sharing of the accounts. All it would take is one person to mess it up for everyone else. You could get Google Apps account for better management but they cost $$.
OldCrowEW said:
yes, def no sharing of the accounts. All it would take is one person to mess it up for everyone else. You could get Google Apps account for better management but they cost $$.[/QUOTE
Google Apps most definitely. Its the only way for you to control 30 phones ---- if your working for a non-profit, then G-Apps is free. You control Google Apps, then you control the phones by natural subordination.
Any other way is going to weigh a heavy demand on your shoulders, big brother.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Googe Apps
kingzion said:
I work in an IT department, and have the task to figure out how we control the 30 or so HTC legend and Desire's which will be handed out to our employees.
I would like to keep the phones as safe a passible, with centralized management so we can push apps to all phones, locate them, remote wipe and so on.
Problem 1: Does every employee need their own Google account? or can we use the same account on all phones?
it would take a long time creating them and keeping track of all the accounts.
Problem 2: how do we restrict them from installing apps themselves?
haven't found anything on this yet..
Problem 3: Is there any management software out there for android?
so far I am thinking about using Lookout for antivirus and locating lost phones, it does not support remote wipe for android,(it does for win mo). And using appbrain to push apps to all phones. will this work? or are there better solutions out there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its true you need a Google account to set up your phones. However, have you thought about setting up your phones with a Google apps account?
Our company has become very "Google Friendly" as of late. We switched our email server out for a very flexible/scalable Google Apps account.
Instead of giving a gps, phone, and tablet to everyone. We found that all our needs were satisfied with giving everyone a Droid.
I am now in control of upwards 200 phones. All but a few are Android (Droids) all are set up under our Google Apps account. If you talk with your Service provider they should be able to set the phones up for you if you order yours in a bulk order at the same time. And yes everyone will need their own account, you would run into a huge mess if you were only using one account. (email, calender, contacts, and settings would all change with one person adding/subtracting something)
As for managing your users ability to download apps. You could do as suggested and remove the market place after you have installed your needed apps. Or you could limit your users to only downloading free apps. (if you set your phones up using Google Apps they cannot sync a google checkout account to their phone. (Is there a reason you don't want your users to download apps?)
Android 2.2 will give you your other request remote wipe, ease of deployment (exchange account sync), and better security.
If you go with Google you get a great community that will be able to help you out.
Free Apps that may help you out.
instamapper (tracking at its best)
wheresmydroid (turn on gps)
pdanet (internet tether)
barcode scanner
gps (mostly built in)
dropbox (file sharing)
It does take time to set up, but I think you would be very please with the transition.
kingzion said:
I work in an IT department, and have the task to figure out how we control the 30 or so HTC legend and Desire's which will be handed out to our employees.
I would like to keep the phones as safe a passible, with centralized management so we can push apps to all phones, locate them, remote wipe and so on.
Problem 1: Does every employee need their own Google account? or can we use the same account on all phones?
it would take a long time creating them and keeping track of all the accounts.
Problem 2: how do we restrict them from installing apps themselves?
haven't found anything on this yet..
Problem 3: Is there any management software out there for android?
so far I am thinking about using Lookout for antivirus and locating lost phones, it does not support remote wipe for android,(it does for win mo). And using appbrain to push apps to all phones. will this work? or are there better solutions out there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
Have you found any apps that fit your needs? Do you use them? If no, is your organization still interesting in mobile device management service?
I'm asking because I'm working for http://bloove.com (personal phone management service) and we're going to expand our offer to small and medium companies.
This new service will combine existing contact, sms, phone log and bookmark backup for personal phone with MDM features like centralized app management, location and wipe service etc.
We're looking for early adopters who will have a chance to add their custom requirements to the service and get this service for free for up to six months.
Please let me know if you're interested and want to discuss this further.
Thank you,
Rostislav
[email protected]
Hello All,
I am relatively new to the Android Scene but I have been messing with my Epic, rooting it, running custom ROMs, and absolutely loving it! So I have decided that I want to move our entire company over to Android phones from WM6 phones.
One thing that I am looking for that I was never able to find for our WM devices was a way to pull a Company Phone Book out to our phones Automatically OTA.
We have about 140 lines on our cell phone pool currently, and when we have a new person start, we send out an email telling everyone that a new person has started and to add their number to their contact list manually. Most people just ignore the email and never do it, so they never actually get the new contact on their phone. So I am looking for a way to automate the process for our people.
We currently have a Public Folder on our Exchange Server that is called "Company Cell Phone List" that holds the contacts for all of our phones with the Employee Name/Number/Picture.
When a new employee starts, I create a new account on the Exchange Server, and log into that users account in Outlook, and Copy/Paste the contacts from the Public folder to their "Contacts" folder and sync the phones OTA with the Exchange Server and move the contacts that way initally.
I know with BlackBerry you can push address lists to the phones through a BES. With WM I never could find a solution, and with Android I am hoping there might be something that I can use to accomplish this.
Is there an App out there that can actually sync this information to the phones automatically instead of having the end users add the contacts manually, or me having to log into 140 outlook accounts and add a new number to their "Contacts" folder each time someone new starts?
Any help would be greatly apperciated. And thanks for letting me be long winded ;-)
HTC seams to support this with their sense cusomized mail app
Is there somewhere that you saw that posted? I am looking at going to Droid 2 Phones wth Verizon so trying to find something that will work on that Froyo platform.
Sent from my Epic 4G using XDA App
you should be able to set up a company google account for this. have all the work phones sync to the contacts backed up on google's server and it'll pull them automatically as changes are made. you can also edit the contact list manually on their site somewhere. not the most secure / professional but it's the simplest method I know of.
Yeah I thought of that method too. At that point I could just set up a common Exchange account and have all of the phones pull from that account and we would have a little more control over it.
I just don't want people sending E-Mail's out of any account other than their specified Exchange Mailbox. So putting a second E-Mail account that has anything with our Company Name associated with it is kind of risky being that there is not much accountability if someone is to send out a non work appropriate E-Mail.
Just too risky to me.
So if there is something Server Side we can do I would do it, else if there actually was an App that could tunnel down to those public shares OTA would be the best.
But again, a common account is a good idea in theory, just worried that someone would send something from the account and cause me all kinds of headaches
I just got a SNS as my first smart phone, I went through all the privacy and account settings I could find and disabled all sync options.
So imagine my amazed horror when I found that all my contacts and calendar entries (and wtf else) are being sent to mr google for access through google dot com/contacts etc
I also found you cant delete a primary gmail account once it's in there - so I cant find any way to stop this behaviour.
Is it possible to keep your contacts and calendar etc only stored local to the phone?
If not possible with stock 2.3 is there a mod like CM7 that doesnt use the google services?
Cheers!
I don't see how it's a bad thing. You never ever have worry about losing your contacts once they sync up with the mothership.
I don't you can access things like the market without a Google account either.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA Premium App
@troopstar
Yes, it is possible to use the Nexus without a Google account in its stock and root state.
Stock and root you can tap the sign-in and navigate to the skip the Google sign-in, but as stated by Zardos66 you don't get to use the Google apps. Like the market, Gmail, Google voice and talk etc without some walk around.
You can sign-in and go back to the accounts & sync and uncheck the boxes and still use the phone and just save all contacts to phone only. This way you can still have access to the Google services if you choose to do so.
If you're so worried about your data being compromised or giving in to Google. Then why did you get a Google phone in the first place if you want to cripple the so-called "Google Experience" with a "Paranoid Experience?" Get a Windows Phone or iPhone.
Like seriously, you just defeated the whole purpose of a phone powered by Android. Google Apps are there to simplify your life. It just wants a warm hug back.
If you really want to cripple your phone and not have any Google services on then flash CM7 and dont flash the gapps.
zephiK said:
If you're so worried about your data being compromised or giving in to Google. Then why did you get a Google phone in the first place if you want to cripple the so-called "Google Experience" with a "Paranoid Experience?"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The question wasn't about "Google Experience" - the topic starter didn't want to get rid of Gapps, like GMail or Google Market. He just wanted to avoid syncing calendar and contacts to Google servers. What's wrong with that? I am getting my Nexus S in a week and I am worried about this issue too. I just don't want to sync online this kind of sensible data - I am perfectly comfortable with my offline contacts' and calendar copies on my PC and external HDD. I am backing up my cell phones from the year 2005 (always had SE, so I used MyPhoneExplorer) and I have never lost any contact, calendar entry or SMS. Hell, I have all my incoming and outgoing SMSes from 2005. I must admit that Google syncing is good for careless people who wipe their phones now and then and in doing so find themselves with no contacts, no calendar events and not even a saved backup to restore everything from. But it's not my case, do you see my point? I don't need Google to "babysit" me and offer his help in syncing my data to his servers - I back up my data very well on my own.
By the way, the "Google Experience" part in your post and your call for changing the Android phone for Winphone or iPhone was a very unpleasant and rude exaggeration. Basically, what you said was equal to saying, for example, that if you want to go the "French way" (or to have the "French experience", paraphrasing you words) you must eat frogs at the restaurant, and if you are of a different opinion and fail to do so - you are a loser. Personally, I hate frogs, but I will always go for a good french wine, so does it make my "French experience" less "french" than anybody elses? In other words, there is no need to be calling people "***holes" if their "Google Experience" doesn't match your own. It's an experience, and it differs from people to people. There is even a saying about that: "Experience may vary".
Getting back on topic, i.e. speaking of backing up in offline mode, I was wondering if you guys could gently help me by pointing at a good program that syncs Contacts and Calendar events to Microsoft Outlook 2007 (without uploading anything to Gmail). I know that the newest version of MyPhoneExplorer has the Android support, but does it work for Nexus S? If not, what other programs can do that? From what I've read so far, this issue is very crippled for Android (unlike many other OSes), but that was several months ago. Has anything changed in a positive way since then?
arbalet42 said:
The question wasn't about "Google Experience" - the topic starter didn't want to get rid of Gapps, like GMail or Google Market. He just wanted to avoid syncing calendar and contacts to Google servers. What's wrong with that? I am getting my Nexus S in a week and I am worried about this issue too. I just don't want to sync online this kind of sensible data - I am perfectly comfortable with my offline contacts' and calendar copies on my PC and external HDD. I am backing up my cell phones from the year 2005 (always had SE, so I used MyPhoneExplorer) and I have never lost any contact, calendar entry or SMS. Hell, I have all my incoming and outgoing SMSes from 2005. I must admit that Google syncing is good for careless people who wipe their phones now and then and in doing so find themselves with no contacts, no calendar events and not even a saved backup to restore everything from. But it's not my case, do you see my point? I don't need Google to "babysit" me and offer his help in syncing my data to his servers - I back up my data very well on my own.
By the way, the "Google Experience" part in your post and your call for changing the Android phone for Winphone or iPhone was a very unpleasant and rude exaggeration. Basically, what you said was equal to saying, for example, that if you want to go the "French way" (or to have the "French experience", paraphrasing you words) you must eat frogs at the restaurant, and if you are of a different opinion and fail to do so - you are a loser. Personally, I hate frogs, but I will always go for a good french wine, so does it make my "French experience" less "french" than anybody elses? In other words, there is no need to be calling people "***holes" if their "Google Experience" doesn't match your own. It's an experience, and it differs from people to people. There is even a saying about that: "Experience may vary".
Getting back on topic, i.e. speaking of backing up in offline mode, I was wondering if you guys could gently help me by pointing at a good program that syncs Contacts and Calendar events to Microsoft Outlook 2007 (without uploading anything to Gmail). I know that the newest version of MyPhoneExplorer has the Android support, but does it work for Nexus S? If not, what other programs can do that? From what I've read so far, this issue is very crippled for Android (unlike many other OSes), but that was several months ago. Has anything changed in a positive way since then?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whoa. Didn't have to write a essay to me. Not even going to bother reading it because ur phone history and i can really care less.
If you read the ops last sentence in regards to cm7 without Google services. So was my post relevant? Yes.
If Microsoft wanted to they can create a Microsoft experience on Android with a manufacturer packaging MS apps like Bing, Bing maps, live mail etc.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
Frankly, get used to cloud sync most os manufacturers are moving to it.
Microsoft even abandoned desktop sync for info management / backup (except for pictures and music) in Windows Phone 7. Microsoft makes the majority of their money from desktop software (like outlook) so when they say direct desktop sync is dead it really is.
atlp99 said:
Frankly, get used to cloud sync most os manufacturers are moving to it.
Microsoft even abandoned desktop sync for info management / backup (except for pictures and music) in Windows Phone 7. Microsoft makes the majority of their money from desktop software (like outlook) so when they say direct desktop sync is dead it really is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I dont get why people don't trust these companies. Like really, if they were to compromise your data or it get compromised. It would devastate the company, it would damage their reputation in the business world. Leading to investors panicing and selling etc etc.
This isn't a business lecture so I wouldn't even go in depth. Long story short, it would look bad on their part and all the trust they would of gained would be lost by consumers and investors.
Well... don't wanna sound like a jackass or something, but to be plain simple: who gives a f#@% about your personal data? I mean aside yourself. It's simply not useful for anyone else, and I seriously doubt there's an evil dude siting in a chair in a dark room at montain view, laughing maniacly cause you just synced your phone book into google servers.
For them it's just statistics, no personal info is relevant. If the guy wanna keep all his data offline cause he don't think is safe enough to leave it in a server (gmail accounts being resetd)... Than I think is a lot more likely his phone get stolen and his house burn to the ground in the same day than google losing it somehow.
But it's free world and everyone can do whatever they want, so if I'm not mistaken all you have to do is skip the login at the beginning (like when you wipe your phone) and add the account manually and uncheck all kind of sync. And just to be sure don't put a sin card on the phone or activate the internet before u set it up.
And ofc delete all info in gmail contacts.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
The funniest thing would be to learn that the OP uses Facebook...
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
Nutsonfire said:
The funniest thing would be to learn that the OP uses Facebook...
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You'll be sad to hear that I havent ever used Facebook
I'm surprised by the hostility of some of the responses here. I like to think I'm pro-choice / freedom to tinker - let me choose to sync to the cloud and get the so called great experience, or choose to keep things local.
Mr Google already knows my porn surfing habbits and who I email via gmail, adding my phone contacts list gives pretty much a 100% view of my 'social network'.
I'm an Aussie, and while I guess my government here could get a bunch of warrants to piece this picture together - I have faith that this isnt gonna happen as I'm not a criminal or terrorist.
While I love you yanks (what we call Americans), I dont understand your legal system, and dont like the idea of all my info being mined courtesy of Google and the Patriot Act.
Call me paranoid if you like, but deny me this choice and I call you a wanker.
I thought a premise of an open source OS like Android was the ability to customise, not be locked into stuff like this?
gratti said:
Well... don't wanna sound like a jackass or something, but to be plain simple: who gives a f#@% about your personal data? I mean aside yourself. It's simply not useful for anyone else, and I seriously doubt there's an evil dude siting in a chair in a dark room at montain view, laughing maniacly cause you just synced your phone book into google servers.
For them it's just statistics, no personal info is relevant. If the guy wanna keep all his data offline cause he don't think is safe enough to leave it in a server (gmail accounts being resetd)... Than I think is a lot more likely his phone get stolen and his house burn to the ground in the same day than google losing it somehow.
But it's free world and everyone can do whatever they want, so if I'm not mistaken all you have to do is skip the login at the beginning (like when you wipe your phone) and add the account manually and uncheck all kind of sync. And just to be sure don't put a sin card on the phone or activate the internet before u set it up.
And ofc delete all info in gmail contacts.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did skip the initial login, however I had to add an account later to use the Market.
My contacts list is not being synced with new ones I add, but I think it did a one-time sync when I added the account as all those in the phone at the time are there.
I guess I'll have to use a packet sniffer to see if new ones are being sent to google anyway (if not displayed).
Thanks for the tip about just deleting them - I'll do that and hope no future 'oops' does a reverse sync and delete them all off the phone.
zephiK said:
Whoa. Didn't have to write a essay to me. Not even going to bother reading it because ur phone history and i can really care less.
If you read the ops last sentence in regards to cm7 without Google services. So was my post relevant? Yes.
If Microsoft wanted to they can create a Microsoft experience on Android with a manufacturer packaging MS apps like Bing, Bing maps, live mail etc.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Touchdown works great with exchange. And there is no need to use Google with it. Hope that helps.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA Premium App
gratti said:
Well... don't wanna sound like a jackass or something, but to be plain simple: who gives a f#@% about your personal data? I mean aside yourself. It's simply not useful for anyone else, and I seriously doubt there's an evil dude siting in a chair in a dark room at montain view, laughing maniacly cause you just synced your phone book into google servers.
For them it's just statistics, no personal info is relevant. If the guy wanna keep all his data offline cause he don't think is safe enough to leave it in a server (gmail accounts being resetd)... Than I think is a lot more likely his phone get stolen and his house burn to the ground in the same day than google losing it somehow.
But it's free world and everyone can do whatever they want, so if I'm not mistaken all you have to do is skip the login at the beginning (like when you wipe your phone) and add the account manually and uncheck all kind of sync. And just to be sure don't put a sin card on the phone or activate the internet before u set it up.
And ofc delete all info in gmail contacts.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't read your whole post but I'm gonna answer that first statement about evils dudes and your personal data
Your right there not going to hack your data but they will sell it to other people. In turn sell it for thousands of dollars to people looking for a marketing crowd. I'm not saying Google does this but the risk does exist. Personally I trust Google with my data but I can definitely understand if people don't trust them. Android is about an open experience which means if someone doesn't want tosync to Google theta shouldn't have too.
Am I wrong in saying this?
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA Premium App
Menu -> Settings -> Accounts and Sync
As suggested though, why get a cloud phone when you don't want to use it?
thommcg said:
Menu -> Settings -> Accounts and Sync
As suggested though, why get a cloud phone when you don't want to use it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fair question.
I was expecting the latest greatest android phone, from the guys doing the android dev, and with excellent intergration to google services if I wanted to use em.
I had nfi, and it wasnt on anything in the box, that all my contacts are synced to 'the cloud'.
Sure as an option that's cool but it appears to be a lot more tightly coupled, and thats my concern.
troopstar said:
Fair question.
I was expecting the latest greatest android phone, from the guys doing the android dev, and with excellent intergration to google services if I wanted to use em.
I had nfi, and it wasnt on anything in the box, that all my contacts are synced to 'the cloud'.
Sure as an option that's cool but it appears to be a lot more tightly coupled, and thats my concern.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its not.
Go into sync the gmail then untick where it says contacts or gmail or whatever else. Viola, no more syncing of contacts with your phone. Just by default it is ticked because most people want their contacts synced I would assume but its very easy to stop it. Just follow the insturction above.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA Premium App
dsellers2 said:
I didn't read your whole post but I'm gonna answer that first statement about evils dudes and your personal data
Your right there not going to hack your data but they will sell it to other people. In turn sell it for thousands of dollars to people looking for a marketing crowd. I'm not saying Google does this but the risk does exist. Personally I trust Google with my data but I can definitely understand if people don't trust them. Android is about an open experience which means if someone doesn't want tosync to Google theta shouldn't have too.
Am I wrong in saying this?
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should had read until the second paragraph. Like I said before for them it's just statistics. Like, you sync your phone book and X% of your contacts are off state or international. That info is sent, so next time you log into gmail you gonna see an offer about long distance calls. Like I said, statistics.
They are not selling your info, they are selling the statistics they collect about their userbase. And thx to that you don't pay a dime for the best mail service around, and for that matter all google services.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
troopstar said:
Fair question.
I was expecting the latest greatest android phone, from the guys doing the android dev, and with excellent intergration to google services if I wanted to use em.
I had nfi, and it wasnt on anything in the box, that all my contacts are synced to 'the cloud'.
Sure as an option that's cool but it appears to be a lot more tightly coupled, and thats my concern.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you checked about sync options inside gmail? I would not be surprised if the contacts were getting pulled from the phone, so next time you would send a mail from browser you would had your contacts ready. That's google like.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
I own a Windows Phone, and buy a couple of apps. My wife want my phone so i give it to her one week so she can decide
For this, i hard reset the phone and sart with her Live ID
Is there a way to install the apps that i already buy with my live id, in her live id ?
nope, the apps are tied to your live ID, only way to share apps is to share live IDs...I know it sucks
Technically, they're actually tied to your Gamertag (Zune Tag) which can be transferred between Live accounts with some effort. However, the intended design is very much that apps are purchased for one user.
Of course, she can still use trial and free apps without any problem.