Infotech Lead India: One-fourth of enterprises will have an enterprise app store for managing corporate-sanctioned apps on PCs and mobile devices by 2017.
Gartner says enterprise app stores offer greater control over the apps used by employees, greater control over software expenditures and greater negotiating leverage with app vendors.
Ian Finley, research vice president at Gartner says apps downloaded from public app stores for mobile devices disrupt IT security, application and procurement strategies.
Bring your own application (BYOA) has begun to affect desktop and Web applications as well.
Enterprise app stores promise at least a partial solution but only if IT security, application, procurement and sourcing professionals can work together to successfully apply the app store concept to their enterprises.
Gartner has identified three key enterprise app store trends and recommendations of how organizations can benefit from them:
The increasing number of enterprise mobile devices and the adoption of master data management (MDM) by enterprises will drive demand and adoption of enterprise app stores.
Enterprises are beginning to formalize more standard support for these devices, and are looking for ways to manage mobile application provision, especially as they develop their own in-house apps to extend more complex data to these devices.
Phillip Redman, research vice president at Gartner, says many enterprises have looked to MDM vendors to provide these capabilities as part of the suite of services that MDM providers are selling.
The development of mobile apps and the support of MDM will drive most enterprise app store implementations during the next 12 to 18 months.
Organizations begin by assessing the realistic need for immediate adoption of enterprise app stores and looking for providers that offer cross-platform support for Web, PC and mobile apps, as well as for different devices.
Gartner suggests that app stores should be part of an MDM bundle of features and should be purchased along with a full mobile management solution.
Enterprise app stores can support a more diverse and competitive automated software process requiring less procurement intervention.
The long-term success of an enterprise app store hinges on increase in the supply of software solutions.
