Odyssey Software (Mobile Device Management)

Odyssey Software, Inc.

Type	Private
Industry	Mobile Device Management
Founded	1996[1] (1996[1])
Headquarters	West Henrietta, New York, U.S.
Key people	Mark Gentile, President and CEO, Founder Greg Siembor, CFO Tom Robinson, EVP Sales and Marketing James Sullivan, EVP Technology
Number of employees	~40 (2010) [2]
Website	www.odysseysoftware.com

Odyssey Software provides mobile device management and software development tools to enterprise companies either directly (primarily through its Athena product) or through partner solutions. Its technology allows companies to manage multiple mobile operating systems at a detailed level, including functions such as inventory collection, software management, remote control, and device configuration.

History

Odyssey Software was founded in 1996 by Mark Gentile ^[1] and originally focused on building software development tools. However, it now focuses on developing software products that enable developers to architect, build, deploy, and manage enterprise applications for managing mobile and embedded devices as well as mobile device management solutions it can deliver to enterprises directly. The company has been sold to Symantec in a deal completed on March 2, 2012.^[3]

Products

• Athena : device management software that extends Microsoft System Center solutions, adding the ability to manage, support, and control mobile and embedded devices, such as smartphones and ruggedized handhelds.^[4]
• AppCenter : an application manager that restricts end-user activity to a set of “authorized only” applications, preventing non-productive or unauthorized device utilization.^[5]
• ViaXML : a mobile and wireless application infrastructure that enables web services (which provide access to data, business logic, knowledge, and application components) to be exposed and called over the Internet and corporate intranet using open Internet standards – XML, HTTP and HTTPS.^[6]
• CEfusion : a set of mobile and wireless application data access infrastructure for rapidly building and deploying rich mobile enterprise applications. It extends the core Windows DNA data access technologies — ADO (ActiveX Data Objects), MTS (Microsoft Transaction Services), and MSMQ (Microsoft Message Queuing) — to the mobile application environment.^[7]

Technology

• Mobile Device Management capabilities such as remote provisioning, inventory collection (including location based data), software management, remote wipe, device lock, remote control, device configuration, and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync management.^[8]

• Management of multiple mobile operating systems through pre-defined or administrator-defined device groups.

• Support for a wide range of mobile operating systems, such as iOS, BlackBerry, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7, Windows Embedded, and Palm webOS.

• The ability to easily integrate with and help power most device management solutions (including BlackBerry Enterprise Server^[9]), such as those of its partners (see below).

• Application management capabilities such as restricting end-user activity to enterprise-approved applications, controlling the availability of applications on a device, automatically launching applications, and restricting the use of certain functions of the Operating System.^[5]

Customers

CocaCola (Freestyle),^[10] Wegmans, OfficeMax, DHL, Intel, J. C. Penney, Plymouth Foundry, others.^[11]

Partners

Motorola, Microsoft, HTC MobilityNow, Trust Digital, AirWatch, Conceivium, CloudSync, Optical Phusion, Stay-Linked, JANAM, others.^[12]

External links

• Odyssey Software homepage

References