IBM Brings Watson to Mobile Device Management

IBM MaaS360 with Watson is nevertheless another instance of Big Blueish incorporating the cognitive data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) of IBM Watson across its entire product portfolio. Announced earlier this year at the InterConnect Conference, MaaS360 with Watson is a cerebral assistant within IBM's mobile device management (MDM) platform that feeds into the company's larger goals around unfied endpoint direction (UEM).

IBM just keeps finding more uses for Watson. Equally with Salesforce Einstein, you lot tin can now recollect of IBM Watson more as an artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) layer broiled into different applications. IBM has practical IBM Watson's deep learning, natural language processing, and predictive analytics to everything from business intelligence (BI) to cancer research.

IBM MaaS360 with Watson brings that intelligence to enterprise IT. Vendors in the MDM space seem to label the tech with a newer and broader acronym with each passing year. Information technology's been called various names, including MDM, mobile application management (MAM), enterprise mobility management (EMM), and now UEM. But the core idea is that information technology helps It manage all of the concern-connected devices and endpoints within an organization, along with segmenting and protecting all of the apps and data on those devices and endpoints. MaaS360 with Watson volition apply ML to analyze devices on the network and recommend policies, patches, and all-time practices to amend manage and protect them within the IBM MaaS360 platform.

"The cognitive insights existence provided by IBM MaaS360 [with Watson] are revolutionary from an Information technology perspective," said Wes Gyure, IBM MaaS360 Strategy and Portfolio Offer Director at IBM. "The insights range from fundamentals, similar advising the IT squad on emerging threats and how they impact the user environment, to providing proactive planning and implementing configuration changes that, until now, were never possible."

Gyure gave virtual private networks (VPNs) equally an example. MaaS360 Counselor automates VPN certificate deployment with more predictive information, such as weather information that will pb to employees working from home to avoid inclement weather. According to Gyure, IBM is too training IBM Watson on concepts such every bit device enrollment, identity direction, and regulatory compliance to further refine its abilities to parse through thousands of documents for relevant insights. [MaaS360 with Watson] will also pull in endpoint security data on active malware threats and zip-day vulnerabilities, and contextualize device recommendations from the MaaS360 Mobile Metrics framework.

"First, our squad has annotated hundreds of documents to build a taxonomy for endpoint direction," Gyure told PCMag. "This guides Watson as it ingests documents to expect for information like device enrollment, identity management, and regulatory compliance as examples of data that information technology's inspecting. By analyzing and detecting patterns across these data sets, MaaS360 will exist able to detect instances of where particular app configuration policies, like deploying a single sign-on configuration, tin can improve application usage dramatically with end users. Additionally, [MaaS360 with Watson] will exist able to detect and make recommendations on active configurations that violate or are not-conformant with information privacy regulations, like GDPR."

The straightforward value of the IBM Watson-powered counselor is its power to amass and clarify all of these data sources, and then factor them into a more proactive IT management strategy. Beyond that, Gyure said IBM is experimenting with how IBM Watson's tongue processing in MaaS360 could bring more conversational AI to the enterprise. For example, imagine a voice control from an IT administrator such as, "Evidence devices eligible for Windows 10 upgrade."

"With this release, nosotros're laying the groundwork for more than natural language interactions for operators," said Gyure. "Our research team is now looking at how yous could appoint with MaaS360 in a conversational tone. For example, asking the system, 'Bear witness me all the iPhones that are currently out of policy.' In the future, we see adding vocalism capabilities where the analysts could literally vocalize that asking and get the respond. We've already piloted this technology in our ain Security Operations Centers through Project Havyn.'"

IBM MaaS360 with Watson is priced at $v.01 per client device per month and comes with a complimentary 30-mean solar day trial.

About Rob Marvin

Rob Marvin

Rob Marvin is PCMag's Associate Features Editor. He writes features, news, and trend stories on all fashion of emerging technologies. Beats include: startups, business and venture capital letter, blockchain and cryptocurrencies, AI, augmented and virtual reality, IoT and automation, legal cannabis tech, social media, streaming, security, mobile commerce, M&A, and entertainment. Rob was previously Banana Editor and Associate Editor in PCMag's Business department. Prior to that, he served as an editor at SD Times. He graduated from Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Yous can besides find his business organisation and tech coverage on Entrepreneur and Fob Business organisation. Rob is too an unabashed nerd who does occasional amusement writing for …