42Gears is a leading enterprise mobility vendor. We recently interviewed here Onkar Singh, the company′s Founder runs through the Bangalore-headquartered company′s recent foray into Manchester.
What sets 42Gears apart in the mobile tech scene?
Innovators' DNA and our zeal to help customers adopt latest technologies to accelerate their business digit transformation. 42Gears is a leading enterprise mobility vendor, started its journey 10 years back in Bangalore and now have expanded to US, UK and other Indian Cities like Mumbai and Rajkot. Currently we have more than 10000 customers across 115 countries.
Why did your company choose Manchester as its UK base?
This expansion is a reflection of 42Gears' growth and commitment to serve its customers with the latest technology solutions. 42Gears has a global customer base and a bulk of its business comes from the US and the UK. UK was the natural choice for setting up the next 42Gears office after US. This strategic move helped 42Gears to serve UK and EU customers better and tap into new business opportunities in these markets. Manchester Investment and Development Agency Service (MIDAS) helped 42Gears to set up operations in the UK, after 42Gears won the TechFast 50 organized by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP (DTTILLP). Manchester serves as a strategic base to explore business development opportunities in the European market. We intend to focus on increasing the company's market presence and strengthening business relationships with existing OEMs, resellers, partners and customers in the United Kingdom and Europe.
How has the landscape of mobile tech solutions changed in recent years?
It has changed immensely.10 years back, we started with the management of Windows-based rugged devices. Today, we're capable of managing VR and IoT smart as well as 'not-so-smart devices', such as a peripheral like a cradle or batter, printer.
What are some of the challenges unique to mobile management software?
Fragmented Android versions and ensuring seamless user experience across platforms top the list. Moreover, businesses sometimes do not really understand their mobility needs and hence, are not able to come up with a mobile strategy. BYOD has its own challenges -employees need freedom to work on their preferred devices, but the restrictions posed by multiple OSs and Android versions make it difficult to provide granular level control.
What is the role you see AI playing in the field?
Machine learning and AI are definitely helping but they're both at a nascent stage. We have also developed an AI-based chatbot to help IT admins perform simple tasks using voice or text commands on the MDM console. This AI chatbot even provides self-service functionalities to end users to perform functions like track, locate, wipe the device without any help from IT admin.
Are businesses becoming more data protection savvy?
Yes. With compliances like GDPR and other regulations required for managing devices in certain regulated industries are increasing, and we can see an increase in the demand from customers about data protection and security of corporate data. We have even partnered with third parties to provide mobile threat defense solutions to our customers.
What are some of the innovations that most excite you?
I am really excited about the 'Things Management' framework which we have recently launched for some of our partners like Datalogic. The solution has been designed to manage both smart and 'not so smart' devices (peripherals), such as printers, scanners, bulbs etc., by simply establishing a connection between the device and the host machine through a 'connector'. We are one of the pioneers in offering VR management solutions and expanding it to almost all the headmonunted devices like PICO, OCULUS GO etc. We are also excited about our partnership with Intel that'll allow us manage the VPro technology-based machines, where even switched off machines can be rebooted remotely, owing to our BIOS level integration.