Odyssey Athena: Best of TechEd Interview

On Tuesday I spoke with Odyssey's David Yeaple about the company's Athena product.

Athena provides device management for a wide variety of device types, integrated with System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). SCCM has some ability to manage a limited selection of Exchange ActiveSync-compatible devices, but Athena's agent-based management greatly expands the selection. See the chart below for details about what devices it can handle—it's a small chart, click for a more readable version—but it works with all of the smartphone OSs that are currently popular and more.

Yeaple said tying into SCCM is one of the product's biggest advantages. Businesses that already use SCCM can build on their existing investment.

"The strength is that there's only one pane of glass, one console," Yeaple said.

On devices that support the technology, Athena can provide app store-style application deployment and is capable of selectively wiping devices—for example, removing corporate email accounts from a personal device after an employee leaves a company. It can also detect jailbroken and rooted devices and apply rules specifically to these devices.

Athena is typically priced in the mid $30s range per device. Visit the Athena page for more about the product.