Google® Android™ Device Management & the Honeywell Approach

Historically the Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) industry has been dominated by Microsoft® Windows® operating systems (OS) like Windows® CE and Windows® Embedded Handheld. However, both end-users and application developers have recently begun looking for viable alternative. Google® Android™ has emerged as the OS that most businesses and developers are evaluating primarily due to its popularity in the consumer smartphone market and the following several reasons:

• More and more AIDC end-users expect rugged hand-helds to have the same or similar user experience as consumer smartphones. The ease-of-adoption lowers the training costs associated with deployment, especially among younger workers.
• In general, the Android™ OS is considered more modern and optimized for touch applications.
• Enterprises are looking to develop applications that may be provisioned to their employees and also offered directly to consumers on their own devices.
• Some developers feel that it is faster to develop applications for Google® Android™ (although this naturally depends on the background of each particular developer).
• The Android™ Market Place has hundreds of thousands of applications that may be helpful for end-users in day-to-day activities and also provides a new route to market for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs).
• Some companies are simply frustrated with Microsoft® and don’t see a clear roadmap beyond Windows® Embedded Handheld 6.5.

In spite of these motivations, some IT decision makers have voiced concerns about the security challenges that Google® Android™ presents and those challenges must be addressed before new offerings are widely accepted. In this paper Honeywell Scanning & Mobility has identified those challenges and detailed a series of solutions that enable customers to consider transitioning without putting their businesses at risk.