AT&T Toggle separates your mobile work and play, makes it possible for IT meddling

Go Ahead – Bring Your personal Device to Work

Switch between work and play with a couple of quick taps for your smartphone or tablet. Carry one device, loaded along with your favorite games and apps in addition to your small business email, contacts and calendars. And picture your organization not minding one bit.

All this is often coming from AT&T*.

AT&T Toggle separates and safeguards business data on employees’ mobile devices, making a distinct work mode aside from the everyday personal mode in one smartphone or tablet. AT&T is the primary U.S. carrier to announce this sort of application, with availability expected before the top of 2011.

Personal mode: When not working, send text messages to friends, watch TV shows and flicks, and play games in your mobile device as you otherwise would. Personal activities remain segregated.
Work mode: If it is time to buckle down and concentrate on business, employees can enter their work environment. On this mode, users can access corporate email, applications, calendars and more, just as they might on a corporate-provided device.

“Our research shows that approximately 50 million employees inside the U.S. alone may benefit from business mobile applications,” said John Stankey, President and CEO, AT&T Business Solutions. “Mobile applications delivered in a cloud computing environment can transform business operations. AT&T is concentrated on integrating advanced technologies – like cloud and mobility – to create valuable solutions for our customers.”

Many Connected Devices, Few IT Resources

In line with a July 2011 Forrester Research, Inc. report, nearly 60 percent of businesses allow employees to take advantage of personal devices for work and supply IT support for some or all of those devices.1

The “bring your individual device” trend can benefit businesses in a considerable number of ways, saving on costs related to company-owned equipment and satisfying employees’ desire for flexibility. Collectively, IT personnel often struggle to preserve control over dozens of alternative smartphones and tablets, stretching their time and budgets to the limit.

With the variety of mobile applications projected to arrive 1.3 million by the top of this year – instead of only 75,000 applications for private computers – managing employee-owned devices seriously is not getting any easier.2

“On the subject of connected devices, one size doesn’t fit all,” said Chris Hill, Vice chairman, Advanced Mobility Solutions, AT&T Business Solutions. “People desire to use their very own smartphones and tablets for work, but that practice can create major headaches for businesses’ IT departments. AT&T Toggle helps resolve the problem in an easy, affordable manner.”

AT&T Toggle offers a convenient web portal that enables IT administrators to:

Manage which employees have access to which company resources.
Add, update and delete business applications on employees’ personal devices.
Wipe all corporate information stored in work mode if an employee leaves the corporate or loses his or her device.

Designed to strip away complexity for both businesses and their employees, AT&T Toggle can be utilized on devices running Android 2.2 and better, and with any employer.

AT&T customers have already indicated interest on this sort of solution. For one organization that gives company-owned devices to greater than 1,000 employees, the CIO is exploring a brand new policy, which might allow employees to make use of personal smartphones and tablets to connect with the company network. With AT&T Toggle, the IT department could manage work-related functions remotely, controlling mobile and security preferences in accordance with employee location and responsibilities. The CIO can protect business data – his number 1 priority – while simultaneously saving at the costs of issuing separate devices to employees.