Enterprise mobile apps for the mobile workforce

Enterprise mobile apps are enterprise applications designed to run on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones—but their distinctions from traditional apps go further. Enterprise mobile apps often exist in multiple versions, each built for a different mobile platform such as Apple iOS or Google Android. Smaller than enterprise applications, they offer more narrowly defined functionality and manipulate a limited set of data. Instead of offering a sprawling, Windows-style interface, they are optimized for a small screen, with quick access to the most popular functions. Touch- screen controls take the place of track pad or two-button mouse inputs. Usually lightweight in design, an enterprise mobile app either pulls a small data set across the mobile network to the mobile device or sends commands over the mobile network to a backend database. Depending on how it handles data, a mobile app may also be usable offline.

Enterprise mobile apps come in three forms:

• Mobilized Windows applications – versions of traditional enterprise applications adapted by IT for use on mobile devices.
• Native mobile apps – apps built, often by third party vendors, explicitly and exclusively for use on mobile platforms.

To enable full enterprise mobility, IT needs to be able to mobilize Windows apps securely and efficiently—as well as to secure native mobile and web apps for use within the enterprise.

Windows applications were designed to run best in a traditional enterprise environment—not on mobile devices where packets may have to travel over mobile networks and connections of varying quality to reach the datacenter. Poor Windows application performance on mobile devices can quickly disillusion users about the effectiveness of your mobility strategy.