According to IDC, Google Android is expected to capture 86.7 percent of the worldwide operating system market by the end of 2019, continuing to show growth from the already eye-popping 85.1 percent reported last year.
The popularity of Android lends itself to not only consumer usage, but also its massive adoption in the enterprise. Now more than ever, the secure and convenient management of devices running this operating system is of global importance.
With this trend mind, let’s explore the evolution of Android management from the early days of Lollipop to today, right at the doorstep of Q, and outline steps IT and security leaders should take to ensure a successful rollout of the latest management techniques for Android.
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Do Androids Dream of Endpoint Management?
The first thing to note about managing Android is that historically, it was (and still is) a highly customizable operating system for manufacturers. Although an organization with a unified endpoint management (UEM) tool can manage all of its devices in one console — from Samsung, to Motorola, to LG, to OnePlus, to Google’s own Pixel and beyond — each different piece of hardware came with its own take on the Android OS and introduced its own set of considerations.
As enterprises began adopting Android, each device vendor created custom application programming interfaces (APIs) for their platform that could be managed, creating a less-than-cohesive overall user experience — especially for companies that had adopted a android device management enterprise
