While Shakespeare's most famous monologue pertains to the great internal debate and dilemma Hamlet faces, I'm not suggesting we should ever compare iPhones to matters of life and death.  However, the IT manager who is being told by the CEO that he has to get his iPhone onto the network, regardless of what the company's IT policies, may certainly feel like it is a matter of life and death.  The IT manager knows that the iPhone should not just be allowed to connect to the corporate back end without any policies. In a perfect world, the data would also be encrypted.  The problem is, the iPhone's native encryption is easily hacked.  "Ay, there's the rub."

Today, there are two major schools of thought in terms of how to go about managing and securing the iPhone.  Some mobility management vendors will create a secure environment on the device where they can control every aspect of that container.  Other vendors suggest that regardless of the iPhone's "limitations," the entire device needs to be controlled and secured as best they can.  The first approach provides depth of control, while the second provides breadth of integration into the native experience of the device (including keeping the native push notifications).  So, which one is better?

I'm not here to answer that question.  Both have their (dis)advantages.  When I was at Interop a couple of weeks ago, two seprate IT managers came up to me to ask how they should go about managing the increasing number of iPhones they had popping up on their systems.  Each person had their reasons for why they wanted to take their particular approach.

So instead of telling you "A" is better/worse than "B," let me open this up to debate.  Where do you stand on the issue?  Where do you see the advantages of one method trump the benefits of the other?

Happy 2009 Holiday Season!