Technology.am (May 4, 2009) — An upgrade to Zenprise’s mobile-phone management software will let IT administrators to find lost phones by using GPS.

If a worker loses a BlackBerry, an IT administrator can remotely locate the device on a Google Map. Even if the GPS capability is turned off on the phone, an IT administrator can remotely turn it on, said Ahmed Datoo, vice president of marketing for Zenprise.

Device Manager is a new module for Zenprise’s existing MobileManager, initially only works on BlackBerry phones. The Device Manager consists of a small, 100KB application that resides on the phone and communicates with back-end software used by IT managers. Companies can push the phone client out to users over the air. Once the agent is on the device, it stays in sleep mode unless a command from the IT department wakes it up. That ensures that it doesn’t consume battery life unnecessarily.

Zenprise’s Device Manager has other tools, the device auditor feature that displays a list of all third-party applications on the phones.

If the IT department finds some applications that may not be allowed under company policy, an administrator can ask the user to uninstall the program. Or, the administrator can remotely uninstall the application, Datoo said.

If user’s phone is sluggish, IT can sort the applications, and if applications might not be necessary can be deleted.

IT can also remotely look at several other device performance measures, like battery level, how much memory is being used, real-time wireless signal strength, which wireless data network the device is connected to and how long a device has been disconnected.

Device Manager costs $20 per month per phone, in addition to the $35 per month per phone for the MobileManager.

For now, it’s only available for BlackBerry devices, but Zenprise expects to extend it to Windows Mobile and the iPhone in the future.