Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’: Unified Endpoint Management Tools

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Gartner Peer Insights is a free peer review and ratings platform designed for enterprise software and services decision makers. Reviews go through a strict validation and moderation process in an effort to ensure they are authentic.

Overview

What Are Unified Endpoint Management Tools?

Unified endpoint management (UEM) tools combine the management of multiple endpoint types in a single console. UEM tools perform the following functions:Configure, manage and monitor iOS, Android, Windows 10 and macOS, and manage some Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable endpoints.Unify the application of configurations, management profiles, device compliance and data protection.Provide a single view of multidevice users, enhancing efficacy of end-user support and gathering detailed workplace analytics.Act as a coordination point to orchestrate the activities of related endpoint technologies such as identity services and security infrastructure. Vendors in this market must include the full capabilities of a traditional Client Management Tool, provide targeted CMT features or offer integration with a 3rd party CMT.

What Is Gartner Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer”?

Since October 2015, more than 300,000 reviews across more than 330 markets have been posted to Gartner Peer Insights. The “Voice of the Customer” is a document that synthesizes Gartner Peer Insights’ reviews for the previous year into insights for IT decision makers. This peer perspective, along with the individual detailed reviews, is complementary to expert research and can play a key role in your buying process, as it focuses on direct peer experiences of implementing and operating a solution. Only vendors with 10 or more eligible published reviews during the specified one-year submission period are included in this document.In the UEM tool market, Gartner Peer Insights has published 916 reviews and ratings in the 12-month period ending 31 October 2019. Figure 1 shows all eligible vendors based on their overall rating, review volume and diversity in industry, company size and deployment region.

What Is the Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice?

In markets where there is enough data, Gartner Peer Insights recognizes the vendors that are the most highly rated by their customers through the Customers’ Choice distinction. To qualify for the Customers’ Choice distinction, vendors must have a product that is aligned to the market, have their overall rating (out of 5 stars) equal or higher than the mean rating for that market, and receive 50 or more eligible published customer reviews during the one-year submission period. In addition, customer reviews must be representative of a broad mix of enterprise clients from different industries, company sizes and deployment regions. Reviews from end-user companies with less than $50M in revenue will be excluded from this methodology. See the full methodology here.Based on the Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice criteria, Figure 1 shows a list (in alphabetical order) of vendors in different segments based on their overall score relative to the market rating and their Review Coverage (see the Methodology section for details). Customers’ Choice vendors appear in the blue box on the upper right, denoted with a Customers’ Choice badge. A maximum of 7 vendors can qualify.Figure 1. Gartner Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer” Unified Endpoint Management Tools Customers’ Choice

Source: Gartner (December 2019)

Use Customer Reviews and Expert Research to Supplement Your Analysis

Along with the historical peer-based perspective represented in this document, Gartner covers the UEM tool market with expert-led research, primarily through the related Magic Quadrant and associated Critical Capabilities research documents.

Magic Quadrants are forward-looking, to help clients identify vendors likely to keep up with or even stay ahead of the overall market. Our analysts look broadly at customer feedback across markets, as well as a company’s forward-looking strategy, roadmap and capabilities. Peer reviews are driven solely by the specific experiences relative to the unique needs of reviewers’ organizations. Hence, there may be a difference in analyst opinions about vendors, products and services versus user sentiment as expressed in peer reviews. For more information on how markets and vendors are evaluated in Magic Quadrants, please see “How Markets and Vendors Are Evaluated in Gartner Magic Quadrants.”

A vendor’s placement in the top-right corner (the Leaders quadrant) in a Magic Quadrant report does not mean that the vendor is the best choice for an organization. Rather, it simply means that a vendor executes well in its overall market presence and has a good strategy for continuing to do so. Often, vendors from other quadrants may be a better fit. They may offer better products (to investigate products further, refer to the associated Critical Capabilities reports that accompany the respective Magic Quadrant), better address requirements from particular verticals and/or be more affordable. Ultimately, making the right choice depends on how the vendor aligns with your business goals. For related research in this market, see “Magic Quadrant for Unified Endpoint Management Tools.”

Not all vendors within a market are included in Gartner expert-generated research. A Magic Quadrant is not intended to be an exhaustive analysis of every vendor in a market, but rather a focused analysis. The criteria for inclusion may consist of market share, number of clients, installed base, types of products/services, target market or other defining characteristics. These criteria help narrow the scope of the research to those vendors that Gartner considers to be the most important — or best-suited — to the evolving needs of Gartner’s clients as buyers in the market. While Peer Insights markets are based on Magic Quadrant market definitions, the standards for entry are broader, thus offering a more expansive view of a given market. Vendor inclusion and placement within the Peer Insights Voice of the Customer and Magic Quadrant is based on their specific Methodology.

Critical Capabilities documents provide insight into how well a product or service fulfills certain functional capabilities within specific use cases. Critical Capabilities reports are a point-in-time analysis to address the question of which vendor will have the best product given your weighting of which capabilities are most important to your organization. For more information on how products and services are evaluated in Critical Capabilities, please see “How Products and Services Are Evaluated in Gartner Critical Capabilities.” For related research in this market, see Gartner’s “Critical Capabilities for Unified Endpoint Management Tools.”

Figure 2 shows the vendors’ position in the Magic Quadrant as of 6 August 2019, and Customers’ Choice distinctions as of 21 November 2019. The list includes all vendors mentioned in the Magic Quadrant along with additional Customers’ Choice vendors listed on Peer Insights, sorted alphabetically.

Figure 2. Gartner Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer” Unified Endpoint Management Tools Magic Quadrant and Peer Insights Customers’ Choice View

Source: Gartner (December 2019)

Gartner Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer”

UEM Tools Peer Reviews and Ratings

In addition to the synthesis provided by the Customers’ Choice, the individual reviews and ratings within Gartner Peer Insights can be a valuable source of lessons learned for those currently in the buying cycle for UEM tool market, particularly if you can find and read reviews from end users like you (for example, those that share your technology adoption bias, company size, industry or geography).These reviews give insight into not only how satisfied existing customers are with a vendor’s product, but also their experience in negotiating with the vendor, getting support for the product or service, and their overall implementation effort. This information can provide you with a firsthand view on what to expect from a particular vendor.The rest of this document will highlight some of the broad findings in the UEM tool market based on 12 months of reviews and will also point you to particular ways to use the site in your buying process.Figure 3 summarizes the overall ratings (out of 5 stars) for vendors in the UEM tools that have received more than 10 eligible reviews in the one-year period ending on 31 October 2019, sorted by number of reviews.The table is sorted by the number of reviews because ultimately, the more reviews a vendor receives, the more likely it is that you can trust a summary rating. This can be visualized by the 95% confidence interval that has been added as a bar range to the overall ratings in Figure 3. This is best interpreted as: “Given the distribution of reviews received, the vendor’s overall rating is 95% likely to be between the lower and upper dots.”While the confidence interval can offer a useful perspective, finding individual reviews from end users like you can be even more valuable. To begin using Gartner Peer Insights this way, please click here to navigate to the overall market page. Find a vendor you are interested in and use the filters on the left to begin narrowing reviews to read. Because access to Gartner Peer Insights is free and open to everyone, this is something that you can delegate to your team as well.

Figure 3. Gartner Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer” Unified Endpoint Management Tools Overall Ratings

Source: Gartner (December 2019)

Vendor Comparison

In addition to reading individual reviews, you can select multiple vendors to compare within the site. Figure 4 and Figure 5 provide an aggregate view, but it is easy to create a comparison between several vendors on your shortlist and then send it to others in your organization. To begin using the site this way, please click here to go to the overall market page. Find the first vendor you are interested in comparing and press the “compare” button.

Figure 4. Gartner Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer” Unified Endpoint Management Tools Vendor Comparison 1 of 2

Source: Gartner (December 2019)

Figure 5. Gartner Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer” Unified Endpoint Management Tools Vendor Comparison 2 of 2

Source: Gartner (December 2019)

Other Vendors Considered

The Peer Insights survey asks reviewers who were involved in evaluation which other vendors were considered before deciding on the choice they made. Figure 6 summarizes their feedback, enabling you to identify which other vendors were typically on the shortlist alongside a given vendor.Figure 6 is an aggregate view, but you can customize the view for your particular shortlist and then send to others in your organization. To begin using the site this way, please click here to go to the overall market page. Find the first vendor you are interested in comparing and press the “compare” button. “Alternative vendors considered” is an item in the comparison.Figure 6. Gartner Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer” Unified Endpoint Management Tools Other Vendors Considered

Source: Gartner (December 2019)

Peer Insights User Ratings

Figures 7 through 20 summarize each vendor’s reviewer demographics for those reviews received in the last year, ending October 2019, along with the demographics of the reviewers and a direct link to the vendor’s ratings on the site. All vendors with more than 10 eligible reviews in the last year are shown, sorted alphabetically.

Figure 7. Gartner Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer” Unified Endpoint Management Tools 42Gears Reviewer Demographics

Source: Gartner (December 2019)