“Enterprise customers are starting to understand the value of using the computing power of converged devices to support business on the front lines,” says Joe Owen, vice president, engineering, iAnywhere. “At the same time, they’re waking up to the fact that this technology demands the same level of management and security that’s been dedicated to the corporate desktops and laptops. The enhancements found in Afaria 5.3 assure the successful and secure deployment of these devices for any mobile business.”

In this spirit, iAnywhere has announced the general availability of Afaria 5.3., an update to its frontline management and security solution. The new version includes enhanced support for wireless device platforms, adds significant security features for handhelds and converged devices, and improves the usability of the product’s patch management capabilities.

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In addition, a new integration component extends Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 management capabilities to a wide range of mobile operating systems including Windows Mobile-based Smartphone, RIM BlackBerry, Symbian and Palm, allowing true enterprise-wide device management from a single console.

Significant new features in Afaria 5.3 include:

Device Types - Expanding on its core support for the Windows Mobile, Palm, RIM BlackBerry, and Symbian platforms, Afaria 5.3 adds support for the newest version of these operating systems, including Windows Mobile 5 for Smartphone, Pocket PC and Pocket PC Phone, Symbian 7.0 with the UIQ and Series 80 shells, and ARM Thumb Processor devices.
 
Outbound Connectivity -  Administrators can notify a device or group of devices to connect for critical updates.  Notification retries are automatically made when the initial notification is not successful.
 
Configuration Management - The ability to centrally control device settings has been expanded to enable Microsoft ActiveSync configuration sessions, set up email accounts and rules, configure GPRS radio settings, and control which applications are allowed to run on mobile devices.  New settings can be rapidly supported via XML-based configuration definitions.
 
Enhanced Security Management - Afaria Security Manager is designed to improve end-user acceptance and usability of security settings with advanced security lock-down capabilities for administrators.  By centrally defining, deploying and maintaining security policies, administrators can ensure that the burden of implementing security features is not placed on users.  In addition, this approach enables administrators to make decisions on behalf of their organizations regarding the balance between security and usability for users.  Afaria 5.3 introduces additional policy management improvements in the following areas:
 
Power-on Password Management – improvements for password recovery situations.
Data-on-Device Encryption – faster performance and new encryption capabilities for PIM data.
Device Lockdown – additional protection for data when devices are lost or stolen.
 
Support for Microsoft’s Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 – Using Afaria SMS Integration Suite with Afaria 5.3, software packages created in SMS can now be deployed to mobile devices including Windows Mobile-based Smartphone, Symbian, RIM BlackBerry, and Palm devices directly from the SMS console.  In addition, a detailed inventory of hardware and software asset information from these devices can be populated in the SMS inventory repository.  The process of distributing software and retrieving asset information is seamless to the administrator due to Afaria’s extensive integration with the SMS 2003 Administrator Console and Management Point. 
 
Enhanced Patch Management Capabilities - Afaria Patch Manager 5.3 improves the patch deployment process and adds significant optimizations to the delivery of software patches to laptop computers connected to wide area networks with low or varying bandwidth.  These capabilities include:
 
One-click Patch Deployment – An enhanced patch creation and deployment process enables administrators to more easily configure patches for deployment to targeted clients.
 
Segmented File Delivery - Administrators can improve file delivery by breaking patches into smaller segments and delivering them individually over a specified period of time.
 
Bandwidth Throttling - Patches can be delivered using Afaria bandwidth throttling capabilities so that patches will not interrupt other business processes.
 
Automatic Updates - Afaria Patch Manager automatically updates itself with new patch information from Microsoft on a scheduled basis, eliminating manual updating.