SOTI MobiControl Reviews

In Hong Kong, we are the distributor for the government sector. We implement it on premise and in the cloud. 

The menu is very user-friendly. SOTI helps manage special purpose devices for security. 

The quality of the support service is poor. The headquarters are not very responsive. Additionally, the actual quality of the software has its drawbacks.

The product is stable. But, nowadays the Android and iOS upgrades are many times a month, and it appears to be a chasing game for both the EMM and the Western manufacturer. 

Our biggest user now has 6,000 customers. 

The tech support is not helpful. 

The setup was straightforward because the systems architecht is simple compared to other solutions like VMware Airwatch.

We looked at Samsung Knox and VMware Airwatch solutions.

My advice is that SOTI is not a good choice for a BYOD solution. Furthermore, the solution needs to add a software container. 

To secure mobile devices.

It's simple to use.

Locking the device.

Identity integration.

We use it for tracking RF units. Across the whole network, we have about 1,000 devices.

The way SOTI has improved our organization is that we were trying to get off of the legacy MSP configuration. The improvement for us is having an OS and an interface for which we can get active support, if we need it, for configuring a unit.

One of the most valuable features is the ease of moving items from one configuration to another; it's a Windows-like setup. Also, the admin console is very easy to manage and to move through.

For the most part, the application deployment works well. Occasionally, when moving a gun, we'll see that we have to manually intervene, when working with the setup.

It has been very stable, so far.

The scalabililty is very good. We've not seen any issues. We have five sites, so far, that are using it.

So far, tech support has been very good. They're responsive and they've been able to provide solutions to the issues that we've brought up.

We used MSP previously. We switched to SOTI because MSP was out-of-support.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. We had to work with our server team so that it was set up the way QC likes to have things set up. To set up the server, it took about a week or two, and that was more just a matter of coordinating. It was very reasonable. It took longer, on our side, to do the legal part.

Our strategy has been to use SOTI to move away from MSP and to get legacy equipment operational, before trying to get anything new going.

In terms of deployment, we've mostly had one person from each of our sites focused on this particular implementation. At some sites, the configuration changes more rapidly than at others.

We worked with SOTI on the set up.

We really haven't had that much time with it yet. It's working well. We have more flexibility with the solution, but there isn't really a fixed number that I can give for ROI at this point.

SOTI's pricing seems to be competitive.

AirWatch was the other one we looked at.

Make sure you can gather your equipment and thoroughly test the configuration before you start rolling out.

We use the remote control technology and screen sharing features for both Android and IOS. At my location, we are using it more for Windows, while some of the other sites are using it for Android. There have not been any complaints or any concerns, they've been working well. I don't know that it's reduced device downtime, as of yet. We're relatively new using it.

We also lock down units and that has also been working fine. We do not have the location services on at this point in time, with our configuration. 

We will be increasing usage of SOTI when we bring on the new DC site that we're planning to put up in the middle of next year. I can't say it's been a cost-savings. It's been more of an update solution, for us.

We use it for managing our mobile devices.

MobiControl is vital to our operation. We have to have SOTI to manage all of our devices. Otherwise, we would have different configurations at each site and it wouldn't be centrally managed. We like the fact that SOTI allows us to centrally manage all of our devices.

Among the valuable features are managing configurations of all devices and being able to remote into devices. That's pretty much all we use it for. We send out configurations for each site that has its devices. Each site has a different configuration, and SOTI manages each configuration for each site.

The remote control technology and screen sharing feature help us resolve issues faster. We primarily use them for Windows CE and Android right now, not iOS. These features are good. We like them.

We use the Lockdown Kiosk Mode feature on all of our devices. We use that so that the operators can't change any settings in the background, and so that the applications they run are immediately available to them. It's a good feature. The admin console is also good; no problems with it.

I would like them to improve the process of enrolling Android devices. It's much more difficult to enroll Android devices than it is Windows CE devices. There are a lot more steps required.

The stability is good. We've had very few cases with SOTI. Over a five-year period we've had something like ten cases.

The scalability is good. We have two groups that manage SOTI. I'm in manufacturing and I have a counterpart in logistics. He has more facilities, so he has deployment servers around the globe, whereas I just have one. 

That is going to change in the next couple of years. We're going to be putting in new deployment servers, probably in Europe and China, likely next year. From what I've understood, that's going to be pretty easily done. We're just going to use a management server in the United States and updates will be sent to all the deployment servers that we set up. 

So it seems really scalable, and we've purchased an additional quantity of licenses that we think we'll need for that deployment.

Technical support has been good. They're very responsive. We had basic support before, but now we have the Enterprise Support. We just got that, so I can't evaluate it. But the basic support we had was very good. They were very responsive. That's the main good thing to look out for: making sure they answer emails and the like.

The setup was straightforward. We have the Enterprise Support package, so they walked us through how to set it up.

In terms of our implementation strategy, right now we're upgrading from version 12.4 to 14.2. It's taken a couple months, but I just set up an on-premise test environment to start moving some pilot devices over. Once that's complete, I'll upgrade the test environment to 14.2, and we'll test it for two or three weeks and then schedule a time to upgrade the production environment.

I am doing the deployment myself, but the admins at each site are helping with the testing process. Once I've completed the test environment, the site admins will test their devices, and I'll do the upgrade after they're done testing.

We used SOTI directly. We have that Enterprise Support and they are required, according to that support model, to help us walk through that. Our experience with them has been very good.

It has saved us money because the manpower needed to manage all the devices, without an MDM, would be a lot. But I can't give any specific numbers.

It makes sense to have scanners on SOTI MobiControl, but it makes less sense to have printers because there are fewer features for them, while the price is the same for both. If they had a lower license fee for printers, we would probably want to purchase those. But since it's the same cost, no matter what kind of device it is, we've opted out of doing printers. There are just not enough features to really justify it.

Plan early and give yourself enough time to plan. Make sure you know what the customer needs as soon as possible. Make sure they understand what they need as well. Test everything. That's probably the best advice I could give, even though it's common sense.

We don't really use application deployment. We don't deploy the actual application itself using SOTI. The application is preinstalled on the devices. We do deploy certain configuration files. We also don't use the real-time location services. 

I wouldn't say MobiControl has reduced device downtime, it's just made it easier to configure the devices.

We have about 40 factories where we're using it. That is probably going to double over the next two years.

I'm the main administrator for the solution, and we have a local admin at each site or group of sites. They have fewer admin responsibilities, but they have admin over their particular sites, their particular folders and devices. I have control over everything. My counterpart in logistics has been using SOTI for a long time, so I lean on him a little bit for his expertise. So it's really two guys who support the system.

We use it for MDM.

I can't speak to any improvements to my organization right now because I don't have a functioning MDM. None of my devices are able to pull down applications. I'm at a standstill.

I do use the whitelist and blacklist. The admin part, where I'm adding users, is not too bad. It's easy enough to use.

We would use Lockdown if someone lost their iPad. Fortunately, no one has lost one lately.

The main feature that we would like to have with Soti is the ability to push an iOS update without having people come to my office. That is the main reason why we went with Soti. And that feature is not working on my version.

There's room for improvement. There are some other little features that would be nice to have, like being able to just have it play a tone. For example, if you misplaced your iPad somewhere in the room, it should be able to play a tone. 

They could organize the software a little bit better, where you access things on the console. It seems like I have to click in three different places in order to get it to go to one area. I should be able to access pretty much any point of the server, whatever I need to touch, from a panel, without having to go click on a menu, then click on the profiles, then click over on Server and go back up to the top and click on the type of device that I have, just to get my applications to show. It would be nicer if it were a little bit smoother.

I wish I had the ability to select an app singly and install or refresh it, instead of having to go into the application controls and assign it to a group. I wish there was a spot that listed all my applications. I could go into a single one and refresh or update. It's not very easily accessible, per application. You go in and you have to create a rule and in that rule you list all of the applications you want in there, and that's really your only access point to it. I don't even know, a lot of times, if there's an update available for it because I can't just go into that one application and see.

I don't find it very stable right now at all. I can't install apps on my devices. That fails. I was having issues with the profiles at one point. The iOS update is not able to be pushed down automatically. Every other day is just another problem.

I think it could handle a bit if it worked right.

Tech support is a hit or miss. You have to go in under the general support and you get a low-level person and I don't know if all of them understand the product very well. I have spent hours on the phone with them.

We were using another MDM called ManageEngine and we switched because we liked some of the features that Soti offered us, but they're not working right now.

The initial setup was definitely a little more complex. We're using the on-premise version, and to get it to work behind our firewalls was a little bit tricky. I am still basically in the process of deploying. I have about 20 devices on it and, as I said, at this point, my server is broken and I've been waiting for a technician to help. He's scheduled to help shortly.

It's been an ongoing process for at least three weeks and every day I'm running into different issues and it's frustrating.

We purchased the software through their sales department and they did not give me a consultant or someone to help with the install.

We probably wouldn't see the savings until everyone is actually on the MDM. We were hoping that we wouldn't have to have people come in for us to push out apps or iOS updates. But I do have to have them come in at the moment to switch from the current MDM to this one. It will be a little while until we see any type of savings.

The solution that we were using costs less, but it didn't offer as much as Soti. It's comparable if you look at it over the five-year term.

We evaluated MaaS360 by IBM. We also looked at SmartMDM. The other option that we liked that Soti has is their VPN on Demand. That actually worked the way we needed it to, where our current one doesn't.

My advice would depend on which version you're buying. If you're buying the standalone and you're running into the same problems that I have, then stay away. But if the cloud version is working, fine. We were told that the standalone is exactly the same as the cloud version but I am not seeing that.

The Kiosk mode has only allowed me to do one app and I have too many apps for that. I really haven't used the share mode very much. Their technicians used it and it was neat to see. I don't use the real-time location services that much because if the person's iPad is not unlocked, it doesn't register. That's a limitation for every MDM because Apple doesn't allow them to have that control.

The solution hasn't helped me with downtime. I have three devices that I have no apps on them and I can't give them back to my executives without the apps on them. The downtime on those three has been some days.

I have about 100 devices that I want to put on it. Their users' roles are field techs that are out in the field talking to our retailers and then there are our executives. We don't have any plans on increasing it because there's no need for more devices in our company. I'm the only one who is deploying it.

Right now I'm pretty frustrated with them, so I'm rating it a four out of ten. They can make it up to me by giving me a single point of contact until I am up and running smoothly. I have two cases right now and I have two different technicians on it. That doesn't make sense.

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.

We use it for the management of our store mobile devices. We have 12,000-plus devices managed by SOTI. We actively deploy applications on a weekly basis, sometimes multiple times a week.

We use the remote control technology and screen-sharing features for our enterprise Android devices. Those features definitely do allow us to resolve some issues faster because we can work with the store associate to have them do whatever they're doing on the floor, and we are able to actively look at the data and figure out what's going on.

While the solution hasn't helped with device downtime per se, but it has helped us resolve application issues.

One of the most valuable features is the remote control. If there are issues in the field, we can remote into those devices and see what kind of issues they are.

Obviously, the other one would be just how easy it is to deploy applications, and we pretty can much guarantee the applications are going to be set up as needed on our enterprise devices.

The management console could be improved to be a little bit more user-friendly. Some of the stuff is a little bit cumbersome, some of it feels like an engineering solution, but otherwise it's pretty good.

Most of the time it's stable. We were on the phone with SOTI pretty much every day when we were doing an upgrade. For a week or so it was pretty rough going. Since then, it's been mostly stable.

When we looked to scale out the solution to manage more devices, it became a little bit cumbersome, as far as managing when devices checked in, managing multiple deployment servers, etc.

Once you figure out how to scale it, it seems to work pretty well.

Sometimes tech support is hit or miss. Sometimes it's more an issue of trying to find the right person who can help you resolve the issue. Typically, you're dealing with an initial-help consultant, but most of the time it requires, at least in our instances, people who have more knowledge of the product, to be able to assist us.

We didn't fully switch. SOTI offset some of the functionality because our legacy platform couldn't support Android devices. That's why we introduced SOTI into the mix. One of the reasons that we chose SOTI, as far as Android goes, is that it was the most advanced platform at the time. We were used to the legacy Windows mobile devices, being able to remote control and see everything on the devices. SOTI allowed us to continue everything that we were used to.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. Our deployment strategy is to do pilots, expanded pilots, and full roll-outs. The amount of time it takes depends on what we're doing and how big the application is.

Everything was done internally and we worked with SOTI directly to resolve any issues.

The only two we were looking at were SOTI and AirWatch.

Make sure to see if all the features meet your criteria. That is really the only thing that varies between MDMs, the features.

We don't use the Lockdown Kiosk Mode feature of the solution. I actually created our own version of the lockdown kiosk feature because we needed more control than what SOTI can provide.

We don't use the real-time location services since we are corporate and everything is local. We don't need to see where devices are geolocated. As for the admin console, it could be better but it's not bad; we're running a slightly older version of SOTI.

The device users are store-associates. The staff for deployment and maintenance of the solution are just two individuals, myself and another engineer. We handle the whole system.

I would rate SOTI at eight out ten. Honestly, there's no product out there that I would ever give a ten, because every product has nuances and issues. My rating of SOTI is more along the lines of the need for them to keep enhancing it and making it a better product, making it easier to use. Most organizations are looking for a more-or-less automated solution that can run and maintain itself, rather than needing a lot of man-hours.

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.