Google comes with Android Enterprise Essentials for SMBs

Google will offer Android Enterprise Essentials to medium and small businesses. For example, the program allows companies to require encryption and a lockscreen on employees’ business phones.

Android Enterprise Essentials is a stripped-down form of the mobility management options that Google already offers through partners. The Essentials variant is intended for relatively small businesses and offers options such as requiring a lockscreen or encryption, enabling malware protection via Play Protect, and disabling the ability to install apps downloaded outside the Play Store. Also, all data from a phone can be deleted if it is stolen.

Google states that larger companies can also use Android Enterprise Essentials to get a first experience in managing Android devices. Google will offer the service through third-party vendors and Essentials will be available in the UK and US first. It should be available worldwide early next year.

Until now, Google has partnered with other companies to manage Android phones for business. There are more than a hundred Android Enterprise partners offering advanced mobility management services, including Microsoft and BlackBerry.