iOS enterprise distribution MDM vs OTA

Question

We have to deploy an enterprise ios app to employees. I came across multiple ways of doing it (http://www.apple.com/business/accelerator/deploy/app-distribution.html).

Either the MDM or the Over the Air(set up your own server for distribution) suits our need. We have to choose between these two. I would like to know .....

1. What are the best MDM tools for distributing an ios enterprise app.
2. What are the advantages of using MDM tools over direct OTA

Thank you

Answer 1

A lot of this depends on the number of devices you plan on deploying to as well as whether or not you want some sort of "control" over your devices. If you could care less about harvesting the status of each device (offline, online, compliant, etc) in your fleet or controlling security settings, email settings, etc I would say skip MDM altogether. You could easily just setup a landing page (ala an App Store) via HTML, CSS, JS, etc and just have your users hit it to consume the app.

As eluded to above if you DO want to do things like see what devices are online/offline, push specific security rules to them, setup Exchange accounts, remote wipe devices, etc then definitely run with an MDM.

The answer really depends on your environment, what you wish to accomplish and how long you have before your deadline.

Regarding the "tools" everyone is playing by the same set of MDM rules set forth by Apple - the meat of the solution depends solely on how the MDM provider implemented the MDM capabilities. I'd recommend looking into AirWatch or MobileIron but understand that both typically take some spin-up time. If you need a quick solution try one of their SAAS models.