Corporate Apps Stores – A Safe Home for Corporate Mobile Apps

At present, the landscape surely belongs to the consumer driven technology, but enterprise driven technology is growing swiftly and chasing consumer driven technology. Experts have predicted that a new strategy will start taking shape, as there will be more than 160 billion app downloads by 2017. This strategy will be named enterprise app stores. A research conducted by ABI reveals that the concept of the enterprise app store will witness 30 percent growth for years to come. This store will be extremely handy, as it will contain only the apps sanctioned by the enterprise and delivered to the employees according to their departments and jobs. It will allow users to be on the driver's seat and select the applications that they think are the best for them.

From management's point of view, the concept of having a centrally managed store that runs on their own policies, where apps are tested thoroughly before placed is definitely an appealing solution. Not only that it provides security benefits but also cost benefits as apps are tested on strict parameters to make sure that they are malware and virus free. The app stores are evolving quickly and this is the reason why managing enterprise app store requires a different approach, as there are different complexities involved in running different apps on different devices and platforms. To control enterprise apps store, approaches must be deployed not only for device security, but they should also have the provision for controlled delivery, distribution monitoring and measurement of the stored applications.

The IT departments should now facilitate this in a controlled approach where MAM or Mobile Access Management solutions are providing the ways to relish the actual benefits of an enterprise app store. These tools will help them to deploy, configure and manage the new versions of the apps. Another feature is that they allow business owners to accumulate apps usage statistics and informs about under-performing apps. Through these stats, business owners can identify the early adopters and retrieve information on apps usage. They can study the stats not only about the downloaded apps, but also about the nature of their usage by employees, customers, partners and clients. This information will help them take a precise decision on which app to continue with and which app to drop.

With the help of the enterprise app store, business owners can also support their employees. They can trace the part of an app, which is not easy for employees to use. This is certainly very helpful as more and more consumers and enterprise apps are entering the corporate sector. It will be easy for them to manage all that have been authorized by the company. 

This trend allows app development companies to capitalize after mulling upon two considerations. Firstly, they will have to develop more flexible apps that are capable of meeting various demands and standards maintained by businesses, without requiring much redesigning or reprogramming. Secondly, they will have to provide granularity on apps usage, as it will assist them in selling the app to the business owner. App developers should have a complete knowledge of what kind of data, managers expect from them.

CONCLUSION

The concept of enterprise app stores is still in its commencement phase and if we believe the predictions made by various resources, we will observe that enterprises and consumers will be able to use more apps through them in a better way. Thus, this is high time for business owners to seize the opportunity and explore this newer way of managing enterprise mobile apps.