Android’s enterprise features put it on par with iPhone, not BlackBerry

Google’s Android platform, like the Apple iPhone before it, has been a hit with consumers but has only been recently gotten serious about adding enterprise features.

The official launch this week of the Android 2.2 (a.k.a., “Froyo”) platform has been Google’s most significant step toward making Android enterprise-friendly yet, however.

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The huge news here is that Google has added several features that will give IT departments much more control over Android-based devices than they have in the past. Android 2.2 will give administrators the capability to enforce password policies across Android devices and to remotely wipe any Android devices that become lost or compromised. Android 2.2 will also support Exchange Calendars and auto-discovery to make it easier for users to set up and sync Exchange accounts.

[ How Android hit the huge time in the smartphone OS market ]

This is all obviously welcome news for enterprise users who want to bring their Android devices to work with them.

However, they shouldn’t anticipate to have full access to all corporate applications, as Google’s open source mobile platform will likely never match up with the security prowess of Research in Motion’s BlackBerry devices. Or as Michael Morgan of ABI Research puts it, the only way Google will ever catch up with RIM is if it runs all Android applications through its own network operations center.

“No one has as good security as RIM does,” he says. “But even so, Froyo will mark the point where Android has grown up and has given users some enterprise functionality. Now Google will not have to keep giving us a new iteration of Android every three or four months and they can give IT departments and handset operators a chance to catch their breath and catch up.”

Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney concurs that Android is not yet where RIM is as far as corporate security goes, but he argues that for limited access to applications such as corporate email, the new version of Android will certainly get the job done. So far Gartner has given Android-based devices a thumbs-up for limited use of corporate email, personal information management, Internet browsing and telephony.

“The ways these products get into the enterprise is by appealing to consumers,” he says. “Consumers bring them in, the enterprises ask for management tools and then the platforms respond. Neither Apple nor Google need to be where RIM is.”

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Android’s enterprise features put it on par with iPhone, not BlackBerry

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