Kevin Kiley, Director of Enterprise Solutions at AirWatch (interview)

AirWatch is the world’s leading Enterprise Mobility Management provider with more than 10,000 customers and 1,600 employees, simplifying and securing enterprise mobility for organizations like Best Buy, Luxottica , United Airlines, BCBG , Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG) Arizona Beverage , Delta Airlines, Henry Ford Health System , Walgreens, Blackboard and Lowe’s. Droid Report recently interviewed Kevin and discussed insights on mobility.

Kevin Kiley, Director of Enterprise Solutions at AirWatch

Droid Report: Hello Kevin, could you tell us more about your role at AirWatch and your initiatives for 2014?

Kevin Kiley: I am the director of enterprise solutions at AirWatch by VMware, the leading enterprise mobility management (EMM) provider. In this role, I lead the U.S. and Canadian enterprise sales team, supporting the diverse needs of AirWatch’s largest clients. As the director of enterprise solutions, I work with our current and potential clients to connect them with the right solutions and ensure their mobile deployment is successful. I listen to our clients to understand the challenges they are facing and help them determine the most applicable solutions to meet their needs.  

Droid Report: Are there any company highlights that you may like to share regarding Interop Las Vegas?

Kevin Kiley: This year, AirWatch is included in two speaking sessions that will highlight mobility and security in the enterprise. During the session titled, “The Always-On Enterprise: Balancing Productivity and Security,” I will discuss how IT must rethink policies and practices to better align them with today’s realities, and move from a posture of rigid control to moderated enablement. The session will offer practical suggestions for supporting user productivity while also satisfying security demands to keep corporate content secure. Additionally, I will discuss tools that help IT straddle the competing demands of always-on employees, whose mobile work lives and personal lives are converging.

Droid Report: What is your personal take on mobile innovations for the enterprise?

Kevin Kiley: I believe that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication and that mobile technology will, and has already proven to, completely revolutionize the way companies do business. At AirWatch, we develop solutions that empower companies to focus on innovative uses of mobile technology rather than the complexities of managing mobile devices.

We have developed mobile device management software that enables IT administrators to manage any device, anywhere in the world, throughout the full lifecycle. The AirWatch platform was developed from the ground up to be multi-tenant, highly scalable, integrate with existing enterprise systems, while offering the flexibility of an on-premise or cloud deployment.

Additionally, the AirWatch Mobile Application Management (MAM) solution addresses the challenge of acquiring, distributing, securing and tracking mobile applications. We also enable secure distribution and mobile access to document collaboration with AirWatch Secure Content Locker™ (SCL). This innovative solution increases employee productivity by providing a central point to securely access the latest sales presentation, board book or financial report from their mobile device. With our existing and growing network of technology partners, our software is able to seamlessly integrate with other systems and infrastructures that businesses may already have in place. Our powerful and intuitive platform continues to differentiate our solutions in the marketplace.

Droid Report: Is there anything else you feel Android users and the Android market should know?

Kevin Kiley: AirWatch provides complete enterprise mobility management solutions for Android enterprise deployments. Additionally, we support all devices with native Android operating systems, including versions 2.2 (Froyo), 2.3.X (Gingerbread), 3.X (Honeycomb), 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), and 4.1 and 4.2 (Jelly Bean). HTC, Kindle Fire, Lenovo, LG, Motorola and Samsung smartphones, tablets and ruggedized devices are all supported. The simple staging enrollment process via the AirWatch Agent is intuitive for Android users. Users simply navigate to the specified URL or scan a QR code and enter their corporate email address, and then authenticate with their username and password in the AirWatch Agent.

To secure Android devices, AirWatch enables various authentication methods, both during enrollment and before granting access to corporate resources. Administrators can require complex passcodes with history and expiration policies, enforce mandatory encryption and automatically wipe enterprise data from rooted devices. IT administrators can also set restrictions for device features, including screen capture and Bluetooth. AirWatch Browser™ enables secure browsing on Android devices and AirWatch Secure Launcher™ for Android enables shared device mode and allows admins to restrict devices to a defined set of features.

AirWatch enables easy configuration of corporate resources on Android devices. Authentication certificates for Email, Wi-Fi and VPN can be silently installed and removed from devices, and native email clients and AirWatch Email Client for Android can be configured for Exchange ActiveSync (EAS). AirWatch also directly integrates with Certificate Authorities, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) or third-party providers, in both cloud and on-premise deployment models. At AirWatch, we configure certificates for a number of systems, including Wi-Fi, VPN and Microsoft EAS.

We would like to thank Kevin Kiley for taking the time for this discussion and AirWatch.