Once workers started bringing their own iPhones to the office, IT departments lost control of where company email and files lived. MobileIron sold the fix. Its software let a company secure work apps, documents and settings on a phone while leaving the owner's photos and texts alone. MobileIron had been founded in 2007, the year the iPhone came out. By its IPO in June 2014, bring your own device had become a standard office policy.

Work Apps, Personal Phones

Ajay Mishra and Suresh Batchu founded the company in Mountain View in July 2007 as Mobile Iron, two words. It released its platform commercially in 2009 and added tools for securing individual apps and content in 2012. The software worked across Apple, Android and other phones. The bet was that mobile would become the main way people worked, and that every company would need one place to set rules for all its devices.

From MOBL to Ivanti

MobileIron sold 11.1 million shares at $9 each on June 12, 2014, and listed on Nasdaq as MOBL. Rivals moved in fast: VMware bought AirWatch, and Microsoft and others bundled similar tools into their own products. MobileIron grew, but it struggled to turn a profit, and the stock spent long stretches below its offering price. Ivanti, a private IT software company, bought MobileIron in December 2020 for $7.05 a share, about $872 million.

Cover: The Blacksmith, James McNeill Whistler. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a blacksmith at the forge (iron).