iPass Unveils Open Platform for Global Enterprise Mobility Services
New cloud-based offering enables enterprises to deploy their own carrier independent mobility services; delivers real-time cost control, security and intelligence at the point of connection
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., — January 19, 2010 — iPass® Inc. (NASDAQ: IPAS), today announced the iPass Open Mobile Platform. The new cloud-based platform gives enterprises choice and flexibility to cost-effectively implement and manage their own mobility strategy by mixing and matching any network or device without requiring changes in infrastructure or disrupting the mobile worker's connectivity experience.
Designed to significantly improve the economics of mobility, the iPass Open Mobile Platform provides the foundation for an expanded portfolio of enterprise mobility services that enables carrier independence, contains expensive connectivity costs, decreases end-user support costs and reduces the administrative burden of managing a mobile workforce.
"The sheer volume of mobile workers and their demands for IT to support a wide range of personal mobile devices, operating systems, and applications are pushing the enterprise mobility market towards increased complexity. Today's IT departments face the costly challenge of adequately managing and securing what have often become very fragmented mobility solutions," said Eric Paulak, managing vice president, Network Services and Infrastructure at Gartner Group. "Enterprises are looking for solutions to manage the cost, complexity, and headache of managing and securing a network of siloed products by providing a unified platform that makes it easy for IT to manage multiple devices, policies, and access methods in real time."
"The most obvious benefit of the iPass services is that we now have a standardized way of connecting to the network in more or less any country in the world. For the users, this solution takes away all the complexity of getting online in a foreign country and means that they can be productive much more quickly," said Henk Elzenaar, service delivery manager for product line network and telecom at Philips. "For us, it gives reassurance that when users get online; we know they're doing so in a secure and predictable manner. And for the business units, it means there is absolute transparency of connectivity costs."
The expanded portfolio of enterprise mobility services are designed to give enterprise IT full visibility into their mobile usage, and to orchestrate policy-based access at the point of connection, while offering employees a simple, secure and seamless connectivity experience. The portfolio includes:
iPass Mobile Connect – a new service that orchestrates policy-based Internet and corporate access through the iPass Open Mobile Client, always on lightweight software that runs on the mobile device. The service collects and transmits data from the mobile device to the enterprise via the iPass Open Mobile Portal, and interfaces with other client software and internal IT systems as needed.
iPass Mobile Insight – a new service that offers companies in-depth reporting and analysis on mobile usage across all their networks and devices. Using the iPass Open Mobile Portal, IT administrators can design and customize sophisticated reports that are driven by the iPass patented SQM data collection system, and monitor 24X7 usage, cost and compliance by division.
iPass Mobile Control – a new powerful policy enforcement service that enables IT staff to apply and enforce cost, security and compliance measures across the mobile workforce by deploying a wide variety of connectivity and device oriented policies in real-time. Combined with iPass Mobile Insight companies can use real-world usage behavior to create policies.
iPass Mobile Network – the world's largest wireless broadband network. With over 140,000 access points around the world, and support for Blackberry, iPhone, Nokia and many other devices as well as all major desktop operating systems.
"Our vision is to be the champion for the enterprise in the mobility space, and provide the enterprise with their own carrier-independent and device-agnostic mobility solution that meets their unique set of requirements and drives ease-of-use for their employees," said Evan Kaplan, CEO of iPass. "With a new open platform and flexible service offerings, enterprises can completely customize, adapt, and manage enterprise mobility as they please through one unified solution."
The extensible iPass Open Mobile Platform is built on a proven cloud-based infrastructure, which handles a quarter of a million transactions a day, with seven data centers around the world, service gateways at hundreds of provider networks and thousands of enterprise customer sites. It allows iPass services to support any network and the broadest range of devices in the industry. The platform already supports over 140 3G devices and through the iPass Open Device Framework customers and partners can integrate new devices in a matter of hours.
"Our customers demand choice and flexibility," said Patrick Schütz, head of Corporate Sales, Products and Innovation, at Deutsche Telekom AG. "The iPass Open Mobile platform and its open device framework allow our business customers to integrate 3G devices and embedded modules quickly, easily and reliably into our unique global Corporate Access mobility solution."
Founded in 1996 iPass (NASDAQ:IPAS) is a leading provider of enterprise mobility services with 3,500 customers, including more than 370 of the Forbes Global 2000.The company's mission is to be enterprise's champion in the world of mobility by providing services that simply, smartly and openly facilitate access from any device on any network, while providing the visibility and control necessary to support the demands of the enterprise customer. For more information, visit www.iPass.com or follow iPass on Twitter at www.twitter.com/iPass.
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