For the past few years, Google has been focusing (among other things) on making Android more attractive to businesses. Its latest effort is called “zero-touch enrollment” and is a tool that will allow companies to seamlessly configure their devices before shipping them out to their employees.
With “zero-touch enrollment” employees (or IT people) won’t have to manually configure their devices anymore. All they have to do is sign in and get access to their work apps and data. Google’s new program also ensure corporate policies are in place from the get-go.
Furthermore, businesses will be given the opportunity to specify configurations and device policies with software from a range of enterprise mobility management providers including VMware AirWatch, BlackBerry, MobileIron, IBM, SOTI, and GSuite.
Google says it is working with several Android OEMs to bring “zero-touch enrollment” to their devices including Samsung, Huawei, Sony, LG, HTC, Motorola, as well as Honeywell and Zebra. The first smartphones which will come with zero-touch support are the Pixel, Huawei Mate 10, Sony Xperia XZ1 and Xperia XZ1 Compact. Google also said that any Samsung device running Android 8.0 Oreo will support zero-touch.
Starting this week, Verizon will be offering zero-touch enrollment in the US one the Pixel, but other devices will be added to the roster soon enough. AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile will also jump on board with zero-touch later this year.
