Office 365 and Mobile Manageability

A new option for mobile device management (MDM) became generally available in Apr. 2015 when Office 365 received basic device management. Office 365 MDM primarily aims to keep Office 365 content secure while on mobile devices. The service is included for free with commercial subscriptions to Office 365, but customers may quickly find themselves hitting limitations of the service and licensing Microsoft Intune or other MDM products for sophisticated application management and device configuration options.

Office 365 Device Management

Mobile devices can be managed by three different Microsoft technologies that offer a range of features depending on which technology is used, and often what type of device is connecting to the service. (For a comparison of the management features available with Exchange ActiveSync [EAS], Office 365 MDM, and Intune, see the chart “Device Management Technologies“.)

Office 365 MDM will be rolling out to existing Office 365 commercial subscribers during the first half of 2015. Administrators can configure policies like password complexity or expiration and view compliance reports on a group basis, which could help ease the complexity of setting up management. Once an administrator has provisioned the service, users enroll their own devices by signing in to Office mobile applications. There is no method for administrators to push enrollment of Office 365 MDM to devices automatically, as is possible with Intune.