Ever since Apple introduced its mobile device management (MDM) protocol for managing devices in 2010, the iPhone has been the de facto standard in smartphones for businesses across every industry. The company held on to that position for a decade by providing a plethora of management capabilities, numerous ways to secure corporate conversations and data, the ability to separate personal and business content, and a way to monitor to ensure that every Apple device being used for business is in compliance with corporate requirements.
Meanwhile, Android devices were pretty much treated as pariahs in many organizations. Over the past decade, there has been good reason for that, but it’s time for a reassessment. For example, now there’s the Android Enterprise initiative, which offers APIs and other tools for developers to integrate support for Android into their enterprise mobility management (EMM) systems.
Let’s look at how the Android platform has been catching up to iOS and how the two stack up overall.
Fragmentation: Not the Achilles’ heel it used to be for Android
For consumers, one advantage of Android is that they have hundreds of devices to choose from at every price point. The array of features varies to a remarkable degree, and Android devices can be customized in a multitude of ways.