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MobileIron<\/a>, which went public in 2014, has been known mostly for helping large companies manage mobile devices, especially in a time when people tend to bring their own. Today it announced it was expanding that mission to the Internet of Things.<\/p>\n When you think about it, it\u2019s a logical move for a company that is used to overseeing a large number of devices and helping IT keep them secure. \u201cWhere we are working, [IoT] is a nice natural adjacency we can leverage,\u201d says MobileIron CEO Barry Mainz.<\/p>\n Mobile device management involves providing mechanisms for securing a mobile device, even when the company doesn\u2019t own it.<\/p>\n Mainz says the standard MobileIron architecture is equipped to deal with IoT because of the company\u2019s experience with mobile devices including a device management component, a policy engine for setting rules around the devices and the ability to secure the data on the device. Where it gets tricky he says, is around authentication because instead of a human logging onto a device, it\u2019s a machine talking to a machine, and often moving critical\u00a0data in the process. MobileIron is using a certification system to work around this passwordless data handoff from device to device.<\/p>\n While MobileIron has experience managing large numbers\u00a0of devices, IoT often involves millions and the question is can the architecture support the increased volume? Mainz\u00a0believes it can. \u201cThe architecture was built to scale to millions of devices. We have millions of devices today and manage pass through in the cloud implementation. I feel really comfortable, where we could provide scale and reliability [for IoT devices],\u201d he said. Mainz adds that\u00a0they have hired people from telecommunications companies used to dealing with extremely high levels of network activity.<\/p>\n The company also announced it was bringing in Santhosh Nair, an industry veteran who worked with Mainz at his previous company, Wind River, to run\u00a0the new IoT division. \u201cEnterprise endpoint security is critical to the successful adoption of technologies for the Internet of Things and many of MobileIron\u2019s engineering innovations are directly applicable to IoT. I believe we have a big opportunity and a huge market lead,\u201d Nair said in a statement.<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth noting that IoT management and security have caught the eye of many companies and MobileIron won\u2019t be alone in this market. Just last year, for example, Cisco paid $1.4 billion for Jasper Technologies<\/a>, a cloud platform for deploying and managing IoT devices.<\/p>\n The new IoT products should be available in the second half of this year, Mainz said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n