What to use for enterprise android development

Question

I seek advise about what solution to use for building a specific enterprise app for android.

We want to develop an enterprise app for a business partner. Our partner sells android devices, and they want us to administrate their devices.

Needed features:

• ability to administrate the device (reboot, block/allow apps, disable uninstall of the app other than administrators, update app silently), so in general, have a functionality that DPC apps have with device-owner mode
• the phone should be associated with a device-account, generated for each device in a store, about 50 devices per store; the phones belong to the store, and customers can try it, but should not have control over it (similar to a retail mode phone)

I am facing these issues:

• rooting the devices is not an option
• silent auto-update and remote management is a must
• only administrators (we) should be able to remove the app

I have read through the Android EMM Developers overview , and the Android in the Enterprise tutorials , but I can't seem to figure out what to use.

As I understand, EMM developers should provide a DPC app and an EMM console to customers. This situation is a bit different, because our customer does not need a console since we will be administrating their devices, and we don't want anybody else to use our console.

Can we use the EMM solution provider way to achieve this - is it right for it at all? -, or should we do something else?

Answer 1

The functionality you are looking for is exactly what EMM providers do, there's no need to develop a new app. It's typical for Admins to interact with the EMM portal instead of the business owners.

Here's how it works: The DPC app is provided by the EMM and acts as the device owner. Settings applied through the EMM console are communicated to the DPC app for enforcement. EMMs manage the devices in two ways: Managed Profile (Android for Work) or Managed Device. You'll want to use a managed device. These are set up by enrolling a device that has been factory reset with your EMM. Newer devices don't need to be factory reset.

EMM's provide you with all the control you need including:

• Locking down/force installing applications silently
• Applying configuration to managed applications
• Enforcing device encryption
• Enforcing device security policies
• Ability to remotely wipe the device
• Kiosk mode

Because the DPC app acts as the device owner instead of the user, it can't be uninstalled and has complete control over the device. The capabilities provided by the EMM's will vary from provider to provider but I'm pretty sure all offer the capabilities you are looking for. AirWatch and MobileIron are popular ones, but there are many more including some free solutions. These features are available on all devices with Android 5.0 and newer.