Where are you going with your apps?

We are constantly craving the ability to access information from a plethora of devices be that information in the public, personal or private cloud.  The accessibility of data from within the public or personal cloud is a simpler process than that of accessing within the private cloud; largely due to the complexities of accessing systems behind the corporate firewall (not just technical complexities but ones of security and HR process). The consumerisation of IT has driven this desire to get access to data wherever it is needed thus providing the business intelligence to make timely and accurate decisions.  This fueled by the adoption of tablets and smartphones is only going to be further exacerbated.

After tablets and smartphones, mobile applications are the next technology wave sweeping the mobile industry, we saw this in niche verticals around 2002 through to 2004 but it is once again proving a popular activity for businesses to assess and adopt. According to a study by Ericsson, 35% of smartphone owners use their apps even before getting out of the bed.  However, as of today, the mobile applications lack the ability to communicate with the enterprise software systems.

As most employees own multiple smart devices today businesses must provide access to their enterprise applications from such devices, supporting initiatives such as BYOC or BYO-3. Mobilising your enterprise applications is a fantastic way of boosting productivity of employees. It allows mobile employees to access the enterprise applications over wireless connections from home or when they are on the road.

The best way to make the applications available to the employees is through an enterprise application store.  Accessing applications from an Enterprise App Store allows IT to track software licensing costs by maintaining an inventory of all the assets and deploying applications to the relevant users. It also enables IT to recommend and deploy “best of” public app store applications to the employees.

However, IT admin cannot manage applications well if they cannot manage mobile devices. So it goes without saying that it is a best practice to have a Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution in place to manage corporate assets and corporate applications.

In the SaaS era, putting your enterprise applications in the cloud is a favorable model. It not only minimizes IT support but also reduces storage and distribution bottlenecks.

Has this got you thinking?  The opportunity to exploit tablet devices has never been better, but careful planning and deployment is critical to ensure that they do not become an expensive notepad.  So if you need help in your MDM and application development strategy come and talk to us to see how we can help.