Moving from Lotus Notes to Google Apps propelled one global nonprofit organization head-on into the law of unintended consequences. "It has caused an explosion of users bringing their own devices for accessing their work email," says the project's manager. "Most to all MDM solutions rely on some type of ActiveSync connection to manage devices. In our Google Apps environment, with IMAP services open--a business requirement--and without a single-sign-on policy and system in place, we're unable to control who has access to their work email on personal mobile devices."

The organization is now evaluating several mobile device management (MDM) systems. Problem is, in order for this shop and others like it to regain control, Google must expose an API to take the place of ActiveSync, and Google won't confirm when, or even if, it will make this API available.

Welcome to the wild new world of mobile device management.

If you're a glass-half-full kind of person, you may see improvements in the manageability of consumer-class mobile devices as coming just in time to offset battered budgets. But any savings realized by letting employees use their own phones for business can be wiped out if just one Droid containing customer information is lost and you can't nuke it remotely. And that's not a given with MDM products, whose capabilities vary widely, as we'll discuss.

The 323 respondents to our August Mobile Device Management and Security Survey, all of whom are involved with their organizations' mobility strategies, are running into other problems, too. The IT director for a multibillion-dollar U.S. construction firm is using ActiveSync to manage smartphones as he waits for management to pull the trigger on a new strategy. "Only phones that can be encrypted, PIN'd, and wiped by us are currently allowed," ...