Good Technology, the leader in secure mobility, has announced its acquisition of Macheen, Inc., a privately held, mobile cloud application service provider based in Austin, Texas. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Building on the company’s recent hassle-free BYOD announcement, this acquisition further enhances Good Technology’s capabilities to provide customers with embedded corporate data plan support across business-required apps, and broadens Good’s carrier relationships, offering organisations more access and choice to work with their preferred wireless operator. Additionally, these new split-billing capabilities will enable customers to tie data usage costs directly to the apps using that data, reducing regulatory risks associated with traditional mobile billing models.
“As BYOD deployments continue to become mainstream, our customers want to alleviate the risk and cost associated with rapidly increasing mobile regulations, tax liabilities and complexities around mobile reimbursement and corporate stipend programs, while at the same time carriers are looking to better serve their enterprise customers,” said Christy Wyatt, chairman and chief executive officer, Good Technology. “By acquiring Macheen and its cloud-based offering, and coupling that with expanded carrier relationships, we will be securely and cost-effectively taking more friction out of deploying secure mobile apps and workflows – further positioning Good ahead of the industry in the race to democratise mobility.”
“At Sprint, we have ripped out and replaced our entire 3G network and deployed 4G LTE in 488 cities to deliver a future-proof data experience for our customers,” said Karen Freitag, vice president, wholesale and emerging solutions at Sprint. “Adding in the ability to deliver split billing capabilities through Macheen and now Good Technology, allows us to continue delivering a high-quality customer experience and further advances Sprint’s position as the leader in enabling Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO).”
Connected mobile devices are growing at an exponential rate, and enterprises are looking at how to capitalise on supporting more than just enterprise devices. According to Gartner, ” The installed base of “things,” excluding PCs, tablets and smartphones, will grow to 26 billion units in 2020, which is almost a 30-fold increase from 0.9 billion units in 2009. The component cost of Internet of Things (IoT)-enabling consumer things will approach $1, and “ghost” devices with unused connectivity will be common.
“To this point, BYOD programs were generally defined by configuration, policy control and device management for smart phones and tablets,” said Richard Schwartz, president and chief executive officer, Macheen, Inc. “Together, our joint technology will offer controlled corporate usage of a broader set of enterprise devices and beyond as the era of Internet of Things (IoT) becomes a reality.”
Macheen serves businesses of all sizes, including Easter Seals UCP North Carolina and Virginia, enabling its mobile healthcare workforce to stay connected to critical HIPAA-compliant applications, while visiting hospitals and other healthcare facilities.
