SOTI MobiControl Reviews

We're a privately owned transportation company and our primary use is our driver-to-dispatch communications. We use devices, managed through SOTI, that allow our drivers to receive their work for the day. We're people movers - we're not parcel movers - so we can tell them where our pick-ups and drop-offs are located. Primarily we're using it for para-transit, for disabled and elderly transportation. People who qualify for certain subsidized programs are able to ride in our vehicles and get to and from everyday locations, like the grocery store or the hospital. We provide that service and our direct line of communication is through the devices that SOTI manages.

Deployment. We call our locations "divisions." If we have a division that's in need of 100 devices being stood up, once we have our SOTI agent on those devices, we can push software updates, we can push profiles. We can do everything that we need to do remotely. That's saving us on the costs of traveling out to a location to set up those devices. It's actually helping us be more agile - and that's the term everybody wants to be now - more flexible. We can run a little leaner as well. We don't need quite so many people to manage all these devices.

Using that remote control feature has been really helpful for us. We're a dispatch office, some of our divisions have hundreds of vehicles at a time calling in and asking for help, looking for locations. Or maybe they have an issue with the tablet that is preventing them from moving on. The interesting thing is, now that we've given some of our dispatchers, and most of their supervisors, access into SOTI, to use that remote control feature, they can see exactly what the driver sees. That has been a big help for us.

Deploying apps on the fly. We're able to update and deploy new applications, directly from the cloud. That's been a huge feature for us. Instead of putting hands on each of these devices - and we're talking thousands of devices - we can manage it all from the backend. That's a huge feature for us. It has really changed the game in how we deploy things.

The other feature, that I have got to say is just leaps and bounds ahead of SOTI's competition, is the remote control feature. It's a true admin remote control, so we don't have to have somebody on the other side of the device allowing us access to the device. We can actually remote right in. If there are problems or errors or even if it's just a training issue with one of our drivers, we're able to pull up a tablet or phone and take pictures of it and we can actually videotape what's going on, on the device itself, and that's been huge.

We use it more than just for troubleshooting these devices. We actually use it for demos and to show people the technology that our company is capable of delivering. That's all from SOTI and it's been really great.

In the past, using third-party hardware and third-party applications, we weren't really able to do that. We could get a screenshot, a moment in time, but not actually see what the drivers were experiencing. We can actually see the driver interacting with the device itself. We can say “Oh, you're pushing the wrong button” or “Oh, that's not even the correct location." It's really helped us be more efficient, and allowed us to troubleshoot issues quicker. Before, we would have vehicles that sat for a day or two before technicians could get to them. Now, we can get to them right away.

There's always room for improvement. One of the things that I would like to see in the future is more control over the application layer. That has less to do with a technical approach, but more a business approach by SOTI, to look at, "Hey, can we partner with Google, can we partner with somebody like that." Most of our devices are Android, they're Google related, so we need access from Google to do certain things. There are ways around that, but right now that's something that we're really looking for. How can we control the Apple Air? How can we get into that app?

One of the apps that we use all the time is Google Maps. Our drivers need navigation and that's something that we really look for: How can we control the Apple Air, how can we make sure that this app doesn't try to update in the middle of the day when our driver needs it? How can we make sure that this app is always available when the driver needs it? We've run into those issues in the past.

Also, training - tips, tricks, best practices, those kinds of things - while I believe we have a training console, I've been through some of it - that's where they could improve. If they could push that a little more, provide some content that's not hidden away in another portal, that would be great. They could have different flavors of training. A video is super-helpful, even if it's a video to show some best practices and the way that things are set up. And then, offering a one-on-one or monthly webinar for a captive audience would be great too.

It's fairly stable.

I'm not worried about growth with SOTI at all. I'm more worried about growth on my end. If we grow any more, I will need more SOTI administrators. That's about it. I would need more people who can do what I and my colleague do. There are only two of us. But that's just resources. SOTI itself is scalable. We're a pretty small fish compared to some of their other customers.

Support has been great, we have Enterprise Support. The 24-hour support has really changed things, and it's just recently that we've switched to that.

I don't think I've ever had an issue with getting a response from SOTI. If something pops up that I can't figure out and my colleague can't figure out, and we've exhausted the Help documents, then we'll submit tickets. We'll call in for technical support. Almost within a day, every time, we have an answer, whether it's about how we need to approach the situation, or what changes might be needed to allow some feature to do something we're trying to do.

As a specific example, we did have an issue where some devices were reaching data limits extremely fast, way too quickly in the month. We were burning through too much data. I was able to get on the phone with our SOTI rep and he showed me three different reports that would work. He showed me how we could create some rules that would allow the devices to be moved out of one group and into another, and that would show us: These devices are streaming higher data. Then we could dig down further to figure out why these devices were using so much data.

Another specific example: One of the things we try to do is have most of our devices hardwired into our vehicles, so that they're charging all the time. They're always getting a charge just to prevent losing a device on the road. The struggle at the beginning was to make sure that these devices get turned off, because we don't want to run down our vehicle batteries, especially at the end of the day. I figured there was a feature, a way to do this without having to go in every night and every day and turn off devices that were on. It was about a 20-minute conversation with a SOTI technical support rep. They showed me, "Here, you just create a timer, and then once we create this timer, at this time of day, every day, all your devices in this group will shut off." It was amazing. It was years ago that we set that up and it's being used as a standard feature at all of our of locations now.

The folks that we work with at SOTI, even level-one support, are really well-versed.

Our previous solution came recommended to us by the third-party transportation app that we use. They recommended we use some sort of free app that you download off Google Play. It was supposed to lock down the device. We deployed that at a very small location, 12 vehicles, 12 devices using it. Once the corporate support had rolled it out and it was left to the local division to man it, we realized we needed functionality to really use these devices remotely. If your users are savvy enough, they can navigate through those free-app lock screens, get around them, do whatever they want to. We noticed that right away.

We had to control those devices, we had to control the users. Our first call was to Verizon and we said, "This free-app solution isn't going to work." Our plan was to upgrade all the devices in our fleet - we're taking 20,000 to 30,000 vehicles across North America. Now, we don't have that many devices in place, but we've taken this as an issue and said, "Look, we're going to replace all this old legacy technology with a simple device and we're going to use SOTI to manage it." And it's taken off.

My 2019 initiative is to remove any legacy technology and replace it with a device that can be managed through SOTI.

I was not a part of the initial setup of SOTI. I was brought in a few months after. There were definitely some growing pains with the setup, it was brand new. We didn't have any sort of MDM or anything like this. We actually didn't deploy mobile hardware until we had SOTI.

I came in about three months after they initially started to use the MDM and, honestly, the changes we made to it were minor. It was more looking at the way device groups were structured and how they grouped everything together: profiles, settings, and that sort of thing. We figured out best practices pretty quickly.

Because I wasn't there for the initial setup and start-up of SOTI, I don't know what information was presented at the time. Since then, and since moving into Enterprise Support, we do have a SOTI rep who explains things. He's open to any questions and shows us things. He's done a great job of that so far. That availability is definitely there. It's the day-to-day right now, in my staff, where we don't have time to really move ahead on other features yet. We're trying to be proactive but a lot of time we end up being reactive, just based on workload.

We were introduced to SOTI by our Verizon Wireless representative. That's how we engaged SOTI. But we did do it directly. Verizon made that introduction and then it was direct with SOTI.

I don't see those numbers and I don't think about it that way. But let me give you an example of something that happened since we deployed SOTI.

We've had a couple of instances where tablets have gone missing or stolen, but we had one really interesting case where we had a driver who was carjacked at gunpoint. They took his vehicle, with the tablet installed. And thank God we had some good local resources who could pick up the phone and call me immediately and tell me what was going on and ask if there was a way we could track that vehicle and I said, “As long as the tablet is on, I can tell you everywhere this guy goes.” We were actually able to not only recover the vehicle but, because this gentleman who decided to take the vehicle, and everything inside it, actually took the tablet out - it looked like it was "off" because the screen was asleep - he put it in his backpack and he continued on his way that day. He was arrested a few hours later because I was on the phone with LAPD talking about where this tablet was moving to.

It was the most exciting Monday morning I've had in a long time.

The transportation vehicle was a minivan but it had been highly customized. It had a wheelchair lift in it, the seating had been done, the chassis was built up. It was a very expensive vehicle. So being able to recover that $100,000-plus vehicle was one big thing.

Also, having the technology to say, "Hey, let's stop this guy from doing this to somebody else," that sent us over the moon. That one case - and I've told this story many times - has allowed us to put our foot in the door, and say, "Look, with our company not only are you getting this great technology and great service and everything else we provide, but we have these tools that allow us to  succeed and be better than our competition." This is just an example of that.

If any organization has this struggle - devices in vehicles, devices given to employees, that do go missing from time to time - we're probably at a 50 percent recovery rate, where we have been able to recover such devices. That's all because of SOTI and that we're able to track those devices through locating methods.

They've been pretty flexible with us, because we've changed the way we do our licensing a few times. We did a yearly, and then we went back and we did a quarterly, and I think we're back to yearly right now.  We've been able to work stuff out and pricing has gone down since the onset. We've got a better rate per device and it's reasonable. The licensing cost from SOTI usually doesn't scare anybody away, once it's explained.

I believe MobileIron was one of them and Airwatch was the other they were looking into.

Since being introduced to SOTI, I've become that guy in our company who helps recommend these solutions. I've been to transportation conferences where I'm being asked, “What are you guys doing? How are you managing this?” and I tell them about SOTI. I say, "Look, you need to look into this company, you need to look into this MDM." I recommend it to just about everybody who talks to us about it, especially when they start describing the issues they've seen. It's easily manageable. You don't need a computer science degree to run it. You have support through SOTI and a Help document that's very thorough.

There's a lot more competition than there was at the beginning, so we do hear from competitors trying to steal us away or move us around. We're very comfortable with SOTI right now. I don't see any reasons to leave. There haven't been any game-changers here where we've said, "Oh my gosh! I can't believe SOTI's doing this now." It's been great.

There are just two of us who are admins for SOTI. We probably have 30 to 40 users who are in and out of SOTI per day. The two of us provide the maintenance and the admin level functions. In the field, for our local divisions, we have what we call our local SOTI expert. We like to have at least one at a location, it depends on the size. If we have hundreds of devices deployed at a division, it's good to have two or three folks there who can help us. Our maintenance staff, our actual maintenance technicians, aren't too involved with SOTI. They know how to enroll a device, how to reset a device, that sort of thing.

I feel like we're probably using about 10 or 20 percent of its full features. There is a lot of functionality that we haven't touched on and a lot of functionality that we don't need. There are definitely more existing features that I could use, but it's a matter of the time and resources.

I'm using it with the handheld pocket devices from Motorola and Internic to provide remote support and employee packages. I also use it for tracking the devices.

When we use SOTI for SAP, if there is an issue where the user cannot connect, we can work on it by remoting to the device, getting some logs and finding if the problem is with the software, SAP, with the network, or maybe the end-user is doing something wrong with his scanner. It helps us to identify the issues the user is having. That means we don't need our expert IT guys to be in that place. If there is one setting that needs adjusting we don't need IT guys to be there, we can do it from here, remotely.

It saves time in supporting end-users.

The most valuable feature is the remote support because there are plants here where IT staff is not present. We can use it to provide support remotely.

The previous version, for example, had the networking signal and that feature was great. When we were troubleshooting, we could find the level of the network I/O. If the worker was working in a corner of the warehouse where the signal was not as strong as in another part of the warehouse, we could say, "Just move a little and you will have coverage for your device." That was great. I don't know why they removed it from the newer version.

The interface works really well with Internet Explorer but when I use the router and I try to get a huge number of devices the max goes from 25 to 50 to 100 or 200 or 250. I don't know why I cannot go forward with the 250 on Internet Explorer. On the screen, when collections are in transfer, I cannot move or see the whole collection.

It's pretty stable. We haven't experienced any issues. Twice in these last two years I had to restart the server but that was related to hardware and not the application.

It is scalable. As we grow, the solution can grow with us.

Technical support is pretty good. The response time is good and the results were that the cases I had were solved. There could be some improvement in the response time.

The setup of the solution was straightforward. Everything was okay with no problems related to the application. For the initial deployment, it took us about a week to enroll the devices.

Before MobiControl we had another solution from Zebra. We used that application to deploy the environment to all the devices that we had on that system. That was how we enrolled all our devices to the new solution.

We did it on our own, myself and another IT guy here.

Pricing is okay, but when you buy your renewal of licenses - at the end of the period or the year - if you have a lot of devices, obviously, it's going to increase. In the end, it's kind of expensive.

I believe we evaluated VMware AirWatch. That was the only other solution we looked at.

I would recommend SOTI for the features that it has and the uses that we have. It supports many platforms. We are working right now with Windows and we are synching with Android and Macs.

In terms of users of the solution, there are 15 IT guys from the Service Desk who use it and about 30 users, who are still IT Operations guys at the facilities. We have several offices here in America, so IT guys use the platform to support end-users in those offices. We have three administrators for the application. The three administrators were involved in the deployment at the start of the project.

I rate it at nine out of ten. To be a ten they would need to improve the pricing.

Easily one of the most valuable features is the ability to give remote control support to Samsung Devices from Android version 2.3.6 and up. The Application Catalogue for deploying Google Play and Enterprise Apps is also excellent, as well as the secure content library for distributing files to devices in a secure manner. The ability to also remotely and silently install apps on mass to a device fleet is a great way of maintaining core app consistency and version control.

SOTI MobiControl has greatly benefited the Information Services department of our organisation, as well as the users of the device. The Remote Control feature for our Samsung Android devices has allowed us to greatly improve resolution times for users having technical issues in the field (a lot of our employees work remotely and visiting head office can sometimes be a multiple day trip). It also allows us to monitor the fleet and alert us to any situations that can potentially cause a security or privacy issue. It also has allowed our staff to stop using the devices as a simple phone call and email device and allow them to take on more and more of their work using this device by allowing us to distribute internally developed productivity apps and enabling them to access files, forms, policies and procedures through the Content Library.

SOTI MobiControl can improve itself in its Reporting module, as while it has a lot of pre-built reports, making custom reports can be quite cumbersome and the addition of a Report Building wizard would be ideal. It also lacks App Containerization features that other EMM and MDM solutions offer. Also, currently if you want to push out a new version of an App, you need to create a new App Deployment rule, as it gives no ability for you to change an existing rule to push out a new APK file.

I have used this product from version 6 to its current version 11 -- for 4 years.

We did not encounter any issues with deployment; it is a simple and easy process to get started with this product. Even with scaling the solution up as our fleet grew, we did not encounter any major issues with migrating the deployment to new servers or databases.

We have only encountered minor stability issues. When we have, SOTI support was able to resolve these quickly.

We have only recently encountered scalability issues with our current deployment outgrowing the Database server’s performance. One piece of advice is that once you get over about 1000 devices deployed, invest in a dedicated SQL server for this product.

Customer Service has been great, it is easy to get in contact with SOTI for questions or issues, and our Australian account manager has always been easy to get in contact with.

Technical support has been great; we have a primary contact dedicated to us in the Australian office, as well as access to the rest of their support teams. Any technical issues or enquiries usually get a response and reaction from SOTI either same business day or next business day.

This has been the only Mobile Device Management solution that our organisation has deployed to date.

Setup was very straightforward. The installer scales quite easily to allowing you to install everything on a single box, or splitting the roles among various servers for high-availability. The most complex part of setup was configuring all the firewall rules for Device Agent communication and web portal access.

We deployed the product with an in-house team, but on occasion would use the vendor team for assistance with steps.

Original setup cost for this device was $24,000 AUD initially with software assurance and support on annual renewal. It has now grown with our devices to around $80,000 AUD annually, leaving at it costing us $220 AUD a day to run.

MobiControl was initially used by the South Australian company before it merged with the national organisation. When we were looking for a National solution, we evaluated Dell’s K3000, AirWatch, MobileIron and SOTI MobiControl. SOTI MobiControl was the clear choice for us as a non-for-profit, as they presented us with a very competitive price and the superior Remote Control functionality allowed us to provide support to our 4 metro and 30+ country bases from central sites much more easily and with a smaller team.

The advice I can give you if you are looking into deploying MobiControl is to have a look at the functionality you need. SOTI MobiControl is one of the clear leaders of Android, with their Android+ technology supporting Samsung, LG and other major vendors, so as a person with a majority iOS fleet, you may find other MDM’s do the same things. If you are a predominately Android shop, this product is the clear choice, as SOTI is one of the major innovators with MDM’s for Android. It had support for SAFE and KNOX technologies with Samsung for example well before the other MDM providers did.

We use SOTI MobiControl for managing Android device management.

SOTI MobiControl's user interface is very tough to handle and should be made more user-friendly.

I have been using SOTI MobiControl for a couple of months.

SOTI MobiControl is a stable solution.

Around 25 users use SOTI MobiControl in our organization.

I rate SOTI MobiControl a five out of ten for scalability.

SOTI MobiControl's initial setup is a little bit complex, and we have a lot of missing options in them.

SOTI MobiControl is a cheap solution. You have to pay a yearly licensing fee for SOTI MobiControl.

I would recommend SOTI MobiControl for less number of users and less use cases.

SOTI MobiControl has a lot of dependencies, and we need manpower to manage the solution.

Overall, I rate SOTI MobiControl a five out of ten.

Our primary use case is version control. A secondary use case would be remote support.

What's really nice about SOTI is that I'm able to push out updates through the devices all over. We have plants here, where I'm located, in Perris, California. We also have plants up north in Modesto and Fresno, and they all have the solution. I'm able to create new software updates here and push them out to people all across California. 

As far as for remote support, anyone from here or any of our other plants can call me, and I can remote directly onto the device and see what's going on.

It saves a lot of time. Before, when I had any official updates, I'd have to collect all of the hardware and physically plug each one of them in and copy over a file to each one of them. As soon as we got this, it saved me a ton of time on that. Now, I don't even have to collect any of the devices. I can just push out updates and continue working. That's pretty awesome.

• It allows you to remote onto the devices. That's really cool.
• Also, using SOTI MobiControl for file sync purposes. I've really enjoyed the use of the file sync when I'm administrating version control in my program.

If the interface was a little bit more intuitive, more easily allowed me to get to where I want to be, that would be a little bit nicer, as far as the file sync goes.

I think there's a lot more functionality to this that I'm not utilizing. I wasn't really given extensive training on the product. I'm using it for just what I need it for, but there's probably a lot more than I could use it for. So more training from the account management team or Professional Services, so that I knew exactly what the functionalities are and the scope of what the solution could bring to us, would be helpful.

There was a time, for a couple of weeks, maybe a month, that I wasn't able to use SOTI Assist. I'm not sure why. When I tried using it again, more recently, it was working. That was the only issue I ever had. It's been very stable.

It's super-scalable. We started here in Perris with the phones that we're using, and I was able to role this out to two more divisions and it was no issue at all. It was pretty much the same thing: "Assembly-line" them through; got them set up. The app automatically pushed out to all the devices so I didn't have to mess with anything on the device at all. I just went and dropped off the devices, did some training, and they were good to go.

I believe I did reach out to them once. They got to it quickly and resolved my issue.

It was pretty straightforward. Our administrator set up the local server that would run SOTI, and getting all the devices configured was super-easy. The setup went really well.

To get all the devices set up didn't take very long at all. In total we have 60 devices. It took an hour-and-a-half to do all of them.

Our implementation strategy was like an assembly line. I wrote down the last four digits in the serial number, and then as I edited each device, I input the type of device with the serial number, and then just dragged the file onto it.

It's really a time-saver. It allows our plant to keep moving. If we have an issue, I don't have to recall all the devices. It allows things to keep flowing, whereas before, everything had to stop, wasting time and money.

I thought pricing was kind of high, but I believe that SOTI is probably the best out there for this type of software, so there's not much I can do about that.

The licensing is annual, per device.

I tried a bunch of things but there was nothing that really worked the way SOTI does. I don't remember any of the names, but they weren't that good.

If you're looking for some software where you can manage a large deployment of hardware, and then you would be able to have remote access, I don't really think that there's anything else out there that's like SOTI. As far as advice goes, work with support. I'm pretty sure you can get done anything you need done, with this software.

In terms of users, it's just me right now. I use it for version control and sometimes I send out messages to the users, to keep track of devices, as well; and for remoting in. That's pretty much it. It's just me. I also take care of any maintenance issues.

We don't have plans to increase its usage at this point. We have everything deployed that we need with it. If we ever have more divisions or we get a new device, of course I would use it then, but there are no plans for a major extension right now.

I would rate it at about nine out of ten. It's pretty solid. The interface is decent. If it was a little bit more intuitive, I'd probably give it a ten. Other than that, it works well for what I need it for.

SOTI MobiControl can be deployed on the cloud and on-premise.

The solution is used for mobile equipment. The idea is to supervise them, configure them from a distance, and dispatch software and patch.

The most valuable feature of SOTI MobiControl is the feature to control what software is on the equipment that is authorized.

I have used Microsoft Intune but it is more complicated than SOTI MobiControl.

I have been working with SOTI MobiControl for approximately eight years.

The stability of SOTI MobiControl with Android is good, but there are some issues with Windows equipment.

SOTI MobiControl is scalable.

We are certified and we offer good support.

The support from SOTI MobiControl is helpful.

The initial setup of the cloud version of SOTI MobiControl is easy and quick. However, the on-premise version can have some challenges.

The cloud version of the solution took us five days to configure the platform and deploy it. The on-premise version can take more time, approximately three to four weeks. However, the time depends on what setup the customer has, such as a proxy and firewall.

The price of this solution is high when you compare it with Microsoft Intune. This is mainly because Microsoft Intune is included with some packages, such as Microsoft Office 365. It makes it difficult to sell SOTI MobiControl because of the pricing against Microsoft Intune.

The solution costs approximately seven dollars a month.

I rate the price of SOTI MobiControl an eight out of ten.

There is maintenance needed for the use of this solution but it is not extensive. You have to be aware of how to maintain it. The solution works with many different types of operating systems and this can cause some issues, but most of the time the issues are fixed by the support.

Some customers purchases this solution thinking it will solve problems they have but it doesn't. For example, the solution can track devices but the solution is not intended for this. The customer will be able to locate the device but then they discover it is not suitable for this purpose.

Our customers pick this solution because we offer good support and are certified.

I rate SOTI MobiControl an eight out of ten.

I recommend this solution to others.

The primary use is providing support to remote employees on mobile phones. We also use it to deploy software and updates to the phones.

The remote control technology and screen-sharing absolutely help us resolve issues faster. If there is a remote user who has difficulties or does not understand an error or a problem or a crash, the support team can remote control the phone and see right away what is on the screen and act on the problem. We could debug, we can help, we can reboot the phone. We have many options to help the remote user who is struggling with an application or with the phone. Before, they had to bring the phone to the office or to their manager so that we can debug it. Now it can be done remotely, most of the time, if the phone is not broken. These are very important features that we like. That's why we use SOTI.

The Lockdown Kiosk Mode is very useful. After the remote control, it's one of the main reasons we use the solution. When you have 9,000 people remotely using your applications, you want to make sure that they don't play with Facebook while they're supposed to be working. It's a very important feature to prevent installation of applications we don't want and to provide a uniform device interface for everybody, no matter what the phone brand. The uniform interface makes training easier. It also prevents installation of software that could be harmful or compromise the security of the phone. It's a very important feature.

Because we have a custom, business-to-business application, the solution's deployment features give us the ability to control the deployment of new versions. We can granularly decide which people or which phone receive updates. It's kind of like having your own "app store" and being able to control what you deploy on the phones, how you want to deploy it and when you want to deploy it. You can see how the deployment is happening; if it's going well or not. It's a convenience feature that provides us with great flexibility in the deployment of our software to our users.

By enabling a faster response time to support users who are having difficulties on their device, it helps us with downtime or with a device that was blocked or malfunctioned. The support team is able to respond faster to problems, providing a faster resolution time so that the end user is back working with the device.

It has improved the security of the phone, through lockdown. If the phone is lost we can remotely wipe it. It reinforces the overall security of the device. 

There are many aspects in which we've improved the efficiency of our operation.

There are many features that we use.

• The main one is providing support through remote control of the phone.
• Another feature we use provides a lockdown screen, which prevents remote users from starting or installing applications that are not officially supported by the company.
• We also use it to deploy updates of our software remotely.
• There are some additional features, like antivirus, that are part of the solution and are nice to have.

In a nutshell, those are the four main features that we use. The software has many more options which we don't use that often.

You need to get used to the admin console. I think it could be improved. It's not the best I've seen. Certainly, the software has a lot of features so you necessarily have some complexity in the interface, but I've seen better. They could make it easier in certain aspects.

Once you know it and how to navigate through it, it's good. When you're not trained on it, that could lead to some difficult situations where you say, "Where is what I need? What do I do?" If you don't know how to navigate through it, you could get lost. It's a complex interface in that regard. You need to be trained.

Development of lockdown screens, and certain aspects of the application, are still cumbersome and difficult to work. A certain subset of the features of the application are sometimes difficult to work with due to the complexity or maturity of certain modules.

One of the main pain points I have had with Soti is support for the latest device. That could cause a problem. Let's say Samsung comes out with its latest device and Sprint and Verizon start to sell that device, and we have a few of those devices to support. Sometimes you need to have an agent on the device and there are times when the agent is not fully compatible with the new device. That can cause problems. Certain stuff crashes. They need to catch up with the latest devices. Generally, when we have difficulties, it's because the phone is brand new and SOTI doesn't have a connector or agent that is fully compatible with the device. Any MDM always has to make sure that its agents support the latest phones that come out. Sometimes it's difficult.

They have to really work on making sure they lock down a strong relationship with the device manufacturers so that they can work in advance on their agents before the phone is released to the wider market.

The solution is very stable. In the four years we've been using it, there have been very few issues.

As I mentioned, we have nearly 9,000 users on one machine. Over the four years, we have had to upgrade the type of machine we're running it on. It scales but the problem is that you need to upgrade the server on which you run. You need to add more CPU or more disk space to support the scalability.

The scalability is horizontal, not vertical. One machine has to have all the accounts. That's one of the issues that we have found with scalability: You always have to keep the same machine. If you want to add a second machine, you need to split the account and that removes flexibility of management.

The other weakness that they have currently is that they don't have systems that are built for redundancy. You have one database that manages everything and, if that database crashes, you have a problem. They could have done a better job with redundancy, and on scalability there is some weakness. It scales but you need to add more horsepower every time.

Because machines are very powerful, it's not so much of an issue. Now we're on the cloud. You can scale servers very easily. But I would like, eventually, for there to be better redundancy in the system for failovers. Failovers are a weakness of the solution. If my server goes down then my solution goes down. They don't have a failover strategy for their solution. That's a weakness in the scalability.

We have Enterprise Support. We have additional support because we are one of their large customers. We have access to some of the senior developers. Generally, we have a direct line. If there is any glitch or any step that we don't understand or we need help, we have fairly quick access to support from SOTI. 

Support is very good. They are very knowledgeable, very good at helping, at doing everything to help when we have issues. They follow through. If they don't have a solution, they bounce it to the dev. Generally, I have always been pleased by their response time, by the quality of the response, and by the knowledge of the people in support. I am very pleased with support.

Generally, you have to install from the app store or they have an OEM website where you can download the agent. Once you know the process, it's fairly straightforward. We've done so many that we're used to it.

It's not complex. It's not simple. It's in between. You have to have a license key and a few other elements on hand. Then you install the agent on the phone, you register it and it appears on the interface. Any MDM will be like that. Deploying a device takes a few minutes, assuming you have everything already set up on your server.

In terms of our deployment strategy, first, we set up our own servers. We have remote users in both Canada and the US. We break it down by countries first. Then we have a breakdown by type of device: tablets or phones. In our implementation, we then segment the phones by provider: Verizon, AT&T, etc. Within those categories, we break it down by type of lockdown screen because we have different types of lockdown screens for a manager and for a regular employee. Based on their roles, they have more or fewer applications available.

We did it internally. We have some people helping on the lockdown screen. For the rest, we manage the software ourselves. But because we are a large SOTI customer, we have Level 3 support. When we have issues or problems or questions, we have access to the top SOTI engineers.

For us, the solution is part of the overall business cost. It's required. It's not about saving money. It's about supporting the users' security.

There are solutions that can be more aggressively priced, but they may not provide all that SOTI does. It's a matrix regarding what feature you use. You need to compare the features you use and what you are willing to pay for them. You may have MDMs that have half of what SOTI provides. They are cheaper but you have less.

SOTI's pricing is okay. It's in the middle. But pricing is a subtle issue. They can provide more aggressive pricing once you start to have a lot of licenses. They have volume discounts and can be very competitive.

You can have the solution in-house or you can have the solution on the cloud, managed by SOTI. Evaluate your needs. There are advantages to having SOTI managing it for you. That's something to look at.

You definitely require some training and understanding of the management platform. That's part of the deployment, especially if you use certain features, like lockdown screens which require some configuration and setup. SOTI can provide support to evaluate this. They help you with certain deployment aspects and training on the solution.

We may look at the real-time location services from time to time, but part of our own software on the cellphone gives us tracking through GPS. So this feature from Soti is not something that is necessary. It's not critical to our use case of SOTI.

Another thing that is important is knowing very well the types of devices that you have and making sure that they are supported by SOTI. If you use older devices or devices that have been on the market a while, that should be okay. If you're planning to have a lot of new devices, and if you're changing devices very frequently, make sure they're supported by SOTI.

Also, if you use an unknown device brand, that could be problematic. We are in the security industry. While you probably you use an iPhone or a Samsung or some well-known brand, in certain industries, like ours, there are specialized phones. You may have phones that are made especially waterproof or that you can drop. They've been "ruggedized," made to work in difficult environments. Those phones may be from brands you've never heard of. If all your phones are from unknown brands, you have to make sure they are supported by SOTI. Generally they are, but you have to do your due diligence between your inventory and what SOTI supports.

For administration of the solution, we have a small team of five people. Because we are hosting the solution ourselves - we have and manage the servers - it's our responsibility. We have two sys admins who maintain and administer the solution.

We are growing every month. We are adding hundreds of licenses every month.

I would rate SOTI at seven out of ten. It's a good product, very stable. There's some stuff that they could improve and I think they are improving it.

Our primary use case is to build patch management to use one particular tool. We can do auto patch updates using SOTI. SOTI has been well placed in terms of the number of endpoints it can handle. 

In terms of the migration from AirWatch to SOTI, we had a specific use case to migrate. If there was already an existing setup on VMware Workspace ONE AirWatch, we had to figure out how to set it up or realign it on SOTI. It is a good feature but still needs to be improved in terms of the number of new devices to which it can reconfigure.

There is a limitation if you want to migrate from the AirWatch to SOTI.

I have been using SOTI MobiControl for a year.

SOTI is both stable and scalable. We use it for 7,000 iPads. 

SOTI has good technical support. They have offices with Canada-based companies and offices across different geographies. So their support is spaced out in different time zones.  

We will continue to use SOTI because the cost is cheaper than VMware Workspace ONE AirWatch.

I would recommend SOTI. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. In the next release, they should make it easier to migrate.