COPE

How it works

COPE sits between full lockdown and BYOD. The device is enrolled as company-owned, so IT can enforce strong policies: mandatory passcode, encryption, OS update deadlines, app allowlists, factory reset protection. But the user is also allowed to sign in with a personal Google or Apple account, install consumer apps and keep private photos.

Android formalized this in Android 11 (2020) with "work profile on company-owned device". The work profile holds corporate apps and data; the personal side stays private but IT retains device-wide controls like blocking USB debugging or requiring a device passcode. Apple doesn't have a named COPE mode; teams get the same result with a supervised device and a permissive app policy.

Why it matters for a fleet

The appeal is one phone per person. No juggling two devices, higher adoption, and the company still owns the asset when someone leaves.

The catch is expectation management. Employees need to know upfront what IT can and can't see. Android's separation makes this concrete: the work profile is visible and wipeable by IT, the personal profile isn't. Put that in writing in the acceptable use policy.

COPE also changes the wipe conversation. When a device is lost, you can wipe everything, because the company owns it. That's not true in BYOD.

Cost-wise, budget the hardware plus a small support overhead for personal-use questions. Storage fills up faster when someone's personal photo library shares the device with the field app, so pick models with 128 GB or more.

How Appaloosa handles it

Appaloosa enrolls company-owned Android devices with a work profile, which gives the COPE split natively: corporate apps from Managed Google Play in the work side, device-level security policies on top, and a selective or full remote wipe depending on the situation. On iOS and iPadOS, supervised enrollment via Apple Business Manager provides the equivalent. The available modes are compared on the Mobile Device Management page.