KACE announced the general availability of the KBOX iPhone Management Module, an appliance-based systems management solution for Apple's iPhone. The module allows IT organizations to centrally deploy, manage, and track their investment of iPhones throughout the enterprise, thus reducing the time and effort required to support iPhones by eliminating hours of manual setup and tracking of managed devices. As an integrated element of the KBOX Systems Management Appliance, the iPhone Management Module complements KACE's comprehensive support for Mac systems.

This announcement comes on the heels of Gartner's recent acknowledgement that the iPhone 3G is ready to serve business customers as an alternative to other mobile devices. Another recent study from ChangeWave shows Apple iPhones as the second best-selling corporate smart phone. iPhones are even more popular with small to medium organizations, with 22 percent of IT managers reporting plans to purchase the devices for business use.

"We are seeing tremendous growth of iPhone usage in the workforce...As the iPhone continues to be the 'go to' smart phone for businesses, it's important for IT organizations to be able to efficiently deploy, track, and manage the mobile devices, just as they would any other critical computing platform. With the industry's first iPhone management solution, KACE offers its customers the ability to manage all devices, from PCs and servers, to laptops and handheld devices, through a single integrated appliance," said Marty Kacin, CTO and co-founder of KACE. BOX allows IT administrators to cost-effectively manage multiple operating systems from a single interface.

KACE's new iPhone support provides centralized and easy management of multiple configuration profiles and tools to apply them based on enterprise policies. iPhone integration with the KBOX provides ease of use, visibility into user adoption, and minimizes costs associated with supporting the distributed iPhone needs of the organization.

Capabilities of the KBOX iPhone Management Module include:

• Asset discovery and reporting capabilities, allowing KBOX users to automatically track iPhones and better understand associated costs, such as carrier contract details, installed software, and reporting on asset growth;
• iPhone profile deployment, allowing for easy policy-based set-up and configuration;
• Easy policy management of multiple configuration profiles across the enterprise, enabling a reduction in costs and complexity of iPhone management;
• Self service profiles, enabling for the availability of downloads from the KBOX user portal;
• Custom Reporting Wizard, allowing for regular reporting on iPhone assets and adoption trends in the business.