SMB Thoughts by Brian Williams

The greatest advantage of Microsoft Smartphones for an MSP is the ability to setup new users and wipe  phones all without having to go on-site. Activesync 4.5 for Windows XP and Mobile Sync Center for Windows Vista provide the facility to configure the user’s account remotely, while the mobile admin utility allows the ability to securely wipe the contents of phone and getting it back to factory defaults.

Today we had a user get a new phone, while their old phone was still active and syncing. The remote wipe utility doesn’t clearly identify which phone is which, so it’s important to wipe and delete all phones associated to a user prior to the new phone setup. Also, after the wipe is complete it’s important to delete the entry confirming the wipe is completed.

Another important item to remote wipe is that security policies have to be enforced via the Exhange server, see below. If not, a remote wipe request will require a user at the other end to OK the wipe request defeating the purpose of the feature.