Can you believe it has been over 10 years since the iPhone was introduced? In the last ten years, mobile phones have revolutionized the way that we communicate. Think of how different your world is today than it was 10 years ago. What were your primary means of communication ten years ago? What about your employees….how are they communicating now? I would venture to say that most of you, and most of your employees, are using a smartphone, and it is likely that many of them are using iPhones; IDC estimates that iOS will have around 15% market share, and there will be 240 million iPhones sold in 2018 alone.
What does iPhone usage mean to your company?
With so many iPhones on the market, it is likely that your employees are using iPhones to communicate at work, either personal communication, or work communication. These phones may be devices that your employees bring on their own (BYOD), or they could be corporate-issued devices. These are likely being used to access corporate email and to text customers and coworkers.
You need oversight, but iPhones are locked down
Your company must have oversight on mobile communication data generated for business purposes. You need to know what your employees are communicating on their iPhones. In fact, depending on your industry, you are mandated to archive text messaging data, and must be prepared to produce text messages for eDiscovery. This creates a problem when it comes to iOS because Apple does not allow text messages to be archived, nor does Apple allow for third-party applications to access text messages or multimedia messages (SMS/MMS).
Imagine, for example, a wealth management company. If an employee of that company is texting their client to give investment advice. Are these texts official communication from the company, or just a friendly conversation? Do you have any insight into what was said? What happens if the SEC comes knocking on your door, asking to see those texts? What would you do? This creates a “Catch-22” – you need to archive iPhone text messages, but Apple prevents you from doing it. So what can you do? Just throw your hands up in the air and say, “Forget it!”? Have no fear, though, there is a solution!
Carrier level archiving is the solution
Carrier level archiving is the solution to the archiving iPhone “Catch-22”. Because all SMS and MMS messages are routed through the carrier, you can archive text messages at the carrier level. This allows you to have oversight on your user’s iPhone communication data, and enables compliance with regulations regarding mobile communication archiving.
Carrier Level Mobile Archiving with Micro Focus Retain
Retain Mobile features carrier level archiving of text messages. This gives you oversight on mobile communication data for your iOS, Android and other mobile devices on the mobile carrier network. This solution is ideal for environments with corporate-owned devices, BYOD, or a hybrid environment of both. Retain Mobile features integration with the mobile carrier to capture text messages (SMS/MMS) directly from the network. This captured data is archived and indexed in Retain and is immediately available to access, search, and perform eDiscovery.
To learn more about Retain Mobile and iOS archiving with mobile carrier level archiving, click below to view the on-demand webinar
Complete Information Archiving
In addition to mobile communication data, Retain archives multi-platform email and social media, in one central unified archive. Plus, with Digital Safe and Retain, Micro Focus has a full set of information archiving solutions. Digital Safe is a market-leading information archiving technology that helps organizations apply and enforce information archiving policies for legal, regulatory, and IT benefits.
To learn more about Retain Mobile and get a price quote visit here.
For more information about Digital Safe, visit here.
Download this whitepaper
The Growing Need for Mobile Device Archiving
Like this post? Here are three more on mobile archiving:
Top 5 Reasons to Archive Mobile Communications
Do Text Messages Really Need to be Archived
Top Risks of Cellphone Usage in the Workplace
[revised: September 25 2018]
