IBM just announced the acquisition of Worklight – the company that accelerates IBM’s comprehensive mobile portfolio, which is designed to help global organizations leverage the proliferation of all mobile devices – from laptops to smartphones and tablets.
IBM says that Worklight will become an “important piece of IBM’s mobility strategy,” offering clients a development platform that helps speed the delivery of existing and new mobile applications to multiple devices and ensures secure connections between smartphone and tablet applications with enterprise IT systems.
The company also introduced new software to help organizations better manage and secure the explosion of smartphones and tablets in the workplace, while also managing laptops, desktops and servers.
With the software, firms can use a single solution to secure and manage smartphones and tablets, as well as laptops, desktop PCs, and servers. IBM Endpoint Manager for Mobile Devices helps organizations support and protect the growing mobile workforce. The software further extends “security intelligence” to deal with the growing threats from mainstream adoption of the BYOD trend.
“As the BYOD movement accelerates, it presents new opportunities and challenges for organizations. In order for them to take advantage of this trend, it is important that organizations have mobile security and management policies in place,” said Bob Sutor, vice president, IBM Mobile Platform. “The new offering from IBM will help organizations manage personal and enterprise-owned mobile phones and tablets across IT networks in order to minimize risk, increase productivity and enhance innovation.”
IBM’s goal is to provide an end-to-end solution that allows enterprises to build and connect mobile apps, manage security on these apps and devices, provide analytics for mobile data, and more. The acquisition of Worklight is expected to close in the first quarter of 2012. Worklight will sit within IBM’s Software Group.
(Image Credit: IBM logo, Worklight logo, IBM Featured Image logo)
