Afaria 5.4 enables enterprises to manage BlackBerrys from existing administration consoles used for other devices, said iAnywhere, which is owned by Sybase Inc. Settings on the device, such as configuration and enforcement, as well as new application deployment and modifications can now be done remotely, said iAnywhere VP of engineering Joe Owen.
Also, the latest Afaria means enterprises can integrate BlackBerrys with Microsoft’s business desktop management product, called System Management Server.
Another notable feature of the latest Afaria is support for Microsoft Mobile 5.0 devices, which include the forthcoming ultramobile PCs being developed under Microsoft’s Origami project.
iAnywhere has added a new monitoring capability specific to Mobile 5.0, Owen said.
It allows administrators to define various types of events that can be monitored on that type of device . . . and to trigger actions that are to be taken if those events occur, he said. For example, if battery levels on a device reach a specified level, then data on the device would be backed up to a storage card.
And administrators can program devices so that if its does battery die, the device won’t return to the original factory settings, as often is the case, but would return to its existing network settings, Owen said. In other words, permanent client identifier capability.
Afaria 5.4, which will be available at the end of the month or almost a year after version 5.3, will cost between $20 and $100 for a one-off license fee per device. Or companies can buy a one-time $5,000 server license, Owen said.
Chief rivals to Afaria include offerings.
