Recently, the MaaS360 MDM solution achieved an important certification under the U.S. Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) by the GSA. Google and Salesforce.com are the only other cloud providers who have achieved this certification from the GSA. We've maintained our position as the pioneer in SaaS (software-as-a-service) solutions for secure mobile device and app management. Now that we're a FISMA-certified company, we've become the preferred solution for many Federal agencies.

Last Thursday hundreds of people gathered around the ring to witness Apple's widely hailed iPad 2 take on the kindle fire, a contender on the rise in the tablet world (released on November 15th). It was a great day in tablet history and a dramatic fight until the very end. The fighters kept the crowd in it for the whole match and two lucky folks walked away with a free tablet of their own! Thanks to all who followed this event on Twitter (hashtag #maas360webinar). If you haven't had a chance, please share your thoughts about the webinar! For those who weren't in attendance I'll do my best to give a blow-by-blow account of each round, though I highly recommend you watch the official recording here.

Do your employees use smartphones at work? Do your employees access business resources from their devices with or without permission? Does your staff use social media services like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn to do business or for recruiting talent? If the answer to any of the above questions is Yes, your organization is hit by the “Consumerization of IT” trend.

This Fall we have seen a couple of new announcements in the smartphone market – iOS 5, iPhone 4S, Motorola Droid Razr, Samsung Galaxy Nexus and now Windows Phone 7.5.  Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5, an update to Windows Phone 7, addresses the major shortcomings of its predecessor and is fast becoming a popular alternative to many iOS and Android devices.

Just five years ago, probably even two, it was more than likely that the mobile phone you had for work was a BlackBerry smartphone from Research In Motion.

I read a news article recently about a woman who got a $200K phone bill. Her brother had gone on vacation without turning off the data texting on his phone. She managed to work out a deal with the carrier, but she’ll still be paying quite a bit.

  Results from the latest MDM report by InformationWeek demonstrate the Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) trend has grown considerably in the past year. If the next report's results are consistent with the past two, BYOD will continue growing until it is a complete normality in the enterprise. This year's survey respondents (323 technology professionals from 50+ person business environments) added a considerable margin to the already-high percentages from last year's survey responses that indicated BYOD acceptance, implementation, and/or future planning were a part of their IT strategy.

  Today Barnes & Noble sent out invitations to the media and IT community to "join [them] for a very special announcement," on November 7th. Fear not the obscurity of this message; the invitation is said to be under a Nook logo, giving us a fair amount of leeway to guess that a new tablet is on its way. If you still have your doubts, for what other reason would Barnes & Noble decide to double the size of its Nook boutiques in coming weeks?

  If you didn't happen to catch last night's live stream of the Google/Samsung event in Hong Kong, here is a quick rundown of what was uncovered:

In the ever-changing world of technology, organizations need to be incredibly flexible to keep up. You have to be careful not to lock yourself into something that could become obsolete or force you to accept constraints that could become problematic. That's what makes the cloud so attractive: your company simply does what it does best, and all the technical considerations are handled by somebody else.