A major deterrent from switching to 950/ 950XL ? Lack of SD Encryption

[intltrojan]

Hello All:
First Time Caller/Poster, Long Time Reader.
I am a Window Phone Fan. Got 1020 on the first day it came out and just picked up my 950XL (Pre-ordered right after the Panos? recent product launch). I love everything that 950XL has to offer, but a big issue is giving me some second thoughts about whether I get to keep my phone ? The ability to get my work email.
My work requires me to use a MDM (Airwatch) to be able to get company email. I was told by my corporate IT that Lumia 950/950XL (or any Windows Phone with SD Cards Slot for that matter) cannot be used to sync with our Exchange server because the lack of encryption on the SD cards. So if I want company email/calendar/contacts on the phone, I must keep my 1020 that is begging for an upgrade. If I were to keep the 950XL, I will be missing out of a essential function/reason of having my phone. I have even proposed allowing IT to disable my SD card without success. Their explanation: Even though Airwatch can disable my card, but the policy on SD card encryption is set on the server side and the mail client would still fail to configure when Exchange ActiveSync queried it to determine if it supports the encrypt SD policy.

If anyone from Microsoft Phone team is reading this/or a SW whiz who can tap into this unmet need via an app offer in Store

-Support SD Encryption. Phone encryption is already supported, can we just extend that support to the SD card?
-Offer a containerized work solution for BYOD devices in Windows 10 that might allow for an encrypted container that is separate from the rest of the phone and protects against data from being removed from that container (for instance for that work account.

I am sure this is the struggle of many people who plan to use this phone as a hybrid business/personal phone (especially considering that the US variant is DUAL SIM). Do you have the same issue? Have you found a workaround?

 

[MrWhiteman]

How do you know that it is not encrypted? Anyway, stop downloading illegal things and the phone is awesome, better than my first 920 to 930 and now got 950. I just can't believe the camera quality, speed of UI and smoothness. Also its much lighter and thinner than previous models. I couldn't go back.

 

[occamsmonkey]

First, @MrWhiteman - that's a bad reply and you should feel bad. Encryption has nothing to do with downloading illegal things. AirWatch is a common management solution used by major companies. Not being able to use it in a corporate environment IS an issue.

That being said, I think your IT department is off base. Mail and Calendar is not an SD card app. It stores to internal storage. If it's because the SD card can be compromised, I guess that's...somewhat valid, but the way SD card writes work I think, again, the IT department is doing that IT Department thing and over-restricting without fully understanding. Apps on the SD can only write to their protected storage. They can't write outside of that except for media folders, which are public. If it's because you can save attachments to an unencrypted document folder, well... you can do that easily enough with any phone. And all Android phones support USB host of unencrypted media. It just feels like it's a policy for policy's sake. But, that's their call. Which sucks.

 

[snakebitten]

I'm the IT guy. Not a huge company, but 32 locations worldwide. And yes, it sucks when the IT guy takes an IT stance that doesn't actually hold up to close scrutiny. Hiding behind fear-factor policies is just part of the way some BIG companies roll. I wish everybody on our network had Windows Mobile. I chose to support all flavors, of course, but it would be much easier to have everyone actually using the devices that support our corporate apps. (If they don't have a Windows phone, they have to use our legacy Desktop X86 application) They are so used to this limitation that they don't know what they are missing. (Our "app-gap" is in reverse. As our apps are being finalized, it's the IPhone dudes that won't have the apps) Momentum is building, however.

Ironically, the OP has an IT staff that doesn't support a Windows Mobile Exchange client. Kind of amazing.