Android or Windows for corporate use?

ajf

ajf

ajf

Soldato
Joined
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Location
Worcestershire, UK
We currently have about 40 Blackberry handsets.
For various reasons we are looking to move away from them, and also issue the users with a tablet.

Which would be the best option for company use?
Gut feeling is Android purely because it is so flexible and can pretty much be used for whatever may come along.
The most likely choice would be Nexus handset and Nexus 10 tablet.
However, what options are there for integrating and managing them in a Windows environment?
Does the recent change from Google about activesync affect the use with Exchange servers? I am still unclear exactly what the change means!!

The argument for Windows 8 phones and tablets is that we already use a Microsoft environment.
However, I know the Surface RT can't join domains and seem to remember Windows Phone 7 didn't have a huge lot of domain integration/management either? Has this improved with Windows Phone 8?
The Surface Pro is likely too expensive for the purposes of this exercise.

So what experience or suggestions do you all have?
It needs to work well with Exchange Server for emails - being able to attach multiple attachments in email app is a must (hence no Apple), good web browsing support, ideally flash and java too for some of our extranet sites, pdf vewing of brochures. Should all be fairly basic stuff for now.
Would also like some sort of management as per BES for security and pushing updates. Not sure if this is possible with these platforms?

Before anyone asks, Apple is not an option and won't be considered at all - see above..
 
I've never seen any sort of device management on the scale of BES when it comes to the android platform. If security is paramount to the company, then Blackberries are the way to go. You do get remote wipe functions with Android when they're hooked up to Exchange ActiveSync, but that's about it.
 
Thank you for the feedback so far. i will have a look at the Phone 8 article in the link.

It may be the new BB10 OS also becomes an option.
Personally I like the BB and the ability to control it through BES. It is just that currently some things just don't work well enough for us. Web browsing was one.
 
Android undoubtedly has the most flexibility and widest functionality of any mobile OS around today, but I have to admit it's also probably the least secure, there are glaring vulnerabilities being uncovered once every few months and Google are pretty slow about patching them.
 
In all honesty, iOS is a lot easier to manage than Android in big deployments. Whichever path you go though, you're gonna need ex2010+
Liquidfox said:
I've never seen any sort of device management on the scale of BES when it comes to the android platform. If security is paramount to the company, then Blackberries are the way to go. You do get remote wipe functions with Android when they're hooked up to Exchange ActiveSync, but that's about it.
Click to expand...
Not really true, Android remote policy can do pretty much the same things like lock timers, min standards, device encryption etc...The real benefit of BES besides large scale handset control is the intranet/internet access control system - this is still to be replicated in any other OS.
 
We are already on Exchange 2010 so no issues there.
The big advantage BES has, especially now as apps become more common to use is that you can control what can and can't be installed and/or actually push out the apps we might need.

When I looked at IOS management it appeared to require a Mac to run it on. Either way there are too many limitations in IOS for it to be suitable. There are a couple of iPads in use already and the main complaint is the limited ability to do things with files between apps.

I would be happy to stick with BES and BB handsets but they are unpopular with the users and even if the OS10 gives the improvements they want I think it will always be difficult to get them to accept them, plus there isn't really a tablet - is the Playbook going to be continued and improved?
For example attach multiple files to emails.

I think Windows Phone 8 is the most likely option if we can accept the loss of control over BES.
There is at least some similarlity to their desktops/laptops which helps, plus the ability to manage and open files in native apps.
 
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