Mobile activity intelligence

#This disclosure relates generally to mobile devices and management systems and, more particularly, to gathering data directly from mobile devices for use in mobile device management.

#In a manner similar to personal computers and laptops, business enterprises increasingly rely on mobile and handheld devices. Indeed, the capabilities and uses of mobile devices have moved beyond voice communications and personal information management applications to a variety of communications- and business-related functions including email, browsing, instant messaging, enterprise applications, and video applications. For example, the functionality of many mobile devices have been extended to include cellular and wireless local area network (WLAN) communications interfaces, as well as virtual private network (VPN) and other client applications. Furthermore, mobile devices used in enterprises may also include enterprise applications used by employees in the field or otherwise.

#Deployment, management and configuration of mobile and handheld devices in enterprise environments, however, present certain challenges. For example, the vast and constantly changing variety of mobile device types, functions and capabilities presents challenges to configuration, provisioning and troubleshooting. Moreover, enterprise mobile expenses are one of the fastest growing enterprise expenditures, and as such, enterprises are paying more attention to their bills from network service providers.

#Various embodiments of the invention are disclosed in the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings.

#FIGS. 1A to 1D are schematic diagrams illustrating an example mobile device management architecture according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

#FIG. 2 provides an example schematic, functional representation of how a control client may be integrated into a mobile device according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

#The invention can be implemented in numerous ways, including as a process; an apparatus; a system; a composition of matter; a computer program product embodied on a computer readable storage medium; and/or a processor, such as a processor configured to execute instructions stored on and/or provided by a memory coupled to the processor. In this specification, these implementations, or any other form that the invention may take, may be referred to as techniques. In general, the order of the steps of disclosed processes may be altered within the scope of the invention. Unless stated otherwise, a component such as a processor or a memory described as being configured to perform a task may be implemented as a general component that is temporarily configured to perform the task at a given time or a specific component that is manufactured to perform the task. As used herein, the term ‘processor’ refers to one or more devices, circuits, and/or processing cores configured to process data, such as computer program instructions.

#A detailed description of one or more embodiments of the invention is provided below along with accompanying figures that illustrate the principles of the invention. The invention is described in connection with such embodiments, but the invention is not limited to any embodiment. The scope of the invention is limited only by the claims and the invention encompasses numerous alternatives, modifications and equivalents. Numerous specific details are set forth in the following description in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. These details are provided for the purpose of example and the invention may be practiced according to the claims without some or all of these specific details. For the purpose of clarity, technical material that is known in the technical fields related to the invention has not been described in detail so that the invention is not unnecessarily obscured.

#Embodiments of the present disclosure provide methods, apparatuses and systems directed to the collection of a wide variety of data from a variety of mobile devices, which, in turn, may be used in facilitating deployment, configuration, and/or management of the mobile devices. In particular embodiments, a central mobile activity intelligence provider may receive any and all data directly, and potentially in real-time, from the mobile devices (e.g., phones) associated with a given enterprise, filter, analyze, and otherwise process the data, and provide customized reports to the enterprise thereby allowing the enterprise to have a better information balance between what the enterprise knows and what its network service provider(s) know. By way of example, in particular embodiments, key reports may include voice summary reports, carrier summary reports, international roaming reports, dropped call reports, and home zone reports, among others, as will be described in further detail below. Such knowledge may enable the enterprise to significantly reduce its costs by utilizing this knowledge to monitor cost drivers, negotiate with network service providers for better rates and to optimize its service plans as well as to verify quality of service (QoS) or compliance and enforce a service level agreement (SLA). Furthermore, this raw and/or processed data may be stored in a central database and compared with other related data over time to gauge the effectiveness of the enterprise's current mobile deployment. Moreover, such aggregated data may be stripped of most or all individual and/or enterprise identifying data and further aggregated with that of other enterprises in a central data repository. In this way, a central mobile activity intelligence service provider may provide multi-enterprise multi-carrier reports that include aggregated data from a plurality of enterprises and network service providers and provide valuable insight to each of the enterprises.