Today we are announcing three more updates to our Android for business portfolio around security and connecting with colleagues. These products will be available to all Google Apps for Business and Google Apps for Education customers:
- With the new version of the Google Apps Device Policy app, employees can quickly secure a lost or stolen Android 2.2+ device by locating it on a map, ringing the device, and resetting the device PIN or password remotely via the new My Devices website.
- Google Apps administrators have an option in the control panel to “Encrypt Data on Device”, which will now include requiring encrypted storage on Android 3.0 tablets. Devices will need version 2.0 of the Google Apps Device Policy app.
- A new corporate contacts app, Google Apps Lookup, makes it easier to find and contact people in your organization. Type (or speak) the name or email address of a coworker, and then tap to call, email, IM or send a text message. Lookup pulls information from the Google Apps directory, so admins need to enable “Shared Contacts” in the control panel before employees can use Lookup on their Android 2.1+ devices.
20 comments:
Guys....please if you really want us to put Android to work in our business, get NTLM authentication fixed!
Would love to see the locate device settings come to non app accounts.
@mark: I seem to have to opposite problem. going to google.com/apps/mydevices, only my enterprise google account gets rejected, but my personal account can log in, but it gets the "this is only available for enterprise users" error.
if it's only available for enterprise users, I should be able to log in with my enterprise account, no?
Thanks for the feedback. There may be couple of reasons on why you may not be able to log in. This feature is only available for customers using Google Apps for Business and Education, who have transitioned to the new infrastructure for Google Apps accounts. Learn how to transition your organization here: http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=182075
I wholeheartedly agree with Mark... This feature (more specifically the locate and lock functionality) would be great for non-apps accounts as well!
Any chance we can get an area for proxy settings? It makes no sense to add all of these flashy corporate settings when the phone can't connect to corporate wireless networks...
Will this allow android devices to support Exchante Activesync policies such as remote wipe and enforce encryption? That's the only reason we are not using Android devices in our organization.
you really need to can the conversation view for the gmail mobile app, love the droid, hate the email makes me miss my blackberry, it's nice for personal conversations, but managing 400mails a day on 20+ different projects with numerous contributers all using different subject lines makes it a mess to read, always miss emails because to not close out each thread of the conversation, also makes difficult to use with gmail web and gmail sync in outlook client who are not in conversation view
This functionality is much appreciated!
A few comments:
1. If you have Google Authentication required on the account, you need your mobile device to log-in to manage your devices (kind of difficult if you lost your phone and can't run the app to get the 6 digit code). Therefore, its critical that you keep your manual codes handy.
2. The lock function shuts the screen off and locks the phone but doesn't seem to require the PIN on a device that has a pin set and security policy that requires a pin. Therefore it seems pretty useless...
Also, is there some way to display owner or organizational contact information on the device so if its lost someone can potentially return it? I miss that from the Windows Mobile days...
going to google.com/apps/mydevices, redirects to personal google account login? I have an GApps Enterprise account
If you use the "visible pattern" instead of the PIN method for unlocking your device...the PIN reset or locking feature is useless. Noticed that even when you LOCK the device...it still doesn't require your PIN or PATTERN to gain access to it (my timeout is 15min, then it would work...regardless). The RING DEVICE and LOCATE DEVICE is a great feature.
I think this should have been implemented to non app users to test it out like the "my devices" service to allow finding a lost/stolen droid. Like let's say apple's find my phone feature.
well remotely locate & lock/wipe a device, encryption for the data... those shouldn't be enterprise only feature, those are things that should be part of android security for all of us. Plus iphone will offer this for free...
nice
The Lock feature works as intended on all Google Experience Devices like the Nexus One, Nexus S and Motorola Xoom. For other Android devices, you will need to change the lock timeout under Settings->Security to "Immediate" in order for the Lock command to lock your device.
I'm disappointed my comments regarding your product launch strategy were censored. Is there another blog where open debate is welcome?
Really need an enterprise configuration tool to remove market and establish access profile
Tried it today to compare with other market options.
Is google considering adding device - software and hardware policy management.
Now that would be nice!
Lets dream a little more... What about corporate file push, software push...
Oh, then there is remote assistance. Oh google I know you can do it :)
I wish you guys would enable this for the Google Apps for Business admin account to be able to see all devices associated with users. We are deploying 30 Lenovo tablets and are pushing out the device app policy to force what little security features are there, but the end users will never go to the my devices page. This should be something for the admins to remote wipe, ring, track gps, etc. Also really need the ability for devices with the policy to be able to manage software and uninstall unwanted apps. These are company owned tablets that we should be able to control.
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Thank you for sharing your feedback with the Google Enterprise team. We will respond to open issues addressed in Comments with future posts on this blog. We appreciate your interest in Google Enterprise.