Even if you haven’t seen The Perfect Storm, you probably have an image in your head of what a perfect storm looks like. If you’re anything like us, you probably imagine high winds, rough seas, and heavy rain, all of which combine to make the storm of a lifetime.
Would you believe us if we told you we were headed right towards the middle of a perfect storm?
In enterprise mobility, we’re seeing a convergence of many factors helping brew their own kind of perfect storm. While independently these factors may only be a blip on the radar, combined together, they create the possibility of catapulting enterprise mobility and MAM into the mainstream.
These three factors are:
- The disillusionment of MDM. Companies who have previously implemented MDM are finding out that it doesn’t work in all scenarios. MDM deployment models are time consuming and inefficient. As more and more companies figure this out, more and more of those same companies are looking for a better way.
- The maturity of app development tools. Tools have become extremely mature, making it easier for enterprises to develop enterprise-grade software quickly and inexpensively. Platforms like OutSystems, Globo, and AnyPresence have shortened the app development timeline from years to months or even weeks. This is a huge benefit for companies getting into MAM and enterprise mobility.
- The sheer volume of mobile apps in the enterprise. Finally, as companies become more familiar with mobility and as they implement tools like those listed above, their volume of apps increases significantly. We used to qualify clients as having ‘a lot’ of apps if they had 5 or more. Now, many clients are coming in with 10 or 20. Though quick and often inexpensive to develop, these apps and their users still need to be managed.
If ever there was an inflection point on the graph charting enterprise mobility growth, this is it.
As all of these factors continue to proliferate and take shape, the perfect storm is getting closer and closer. We think it will probably be about a year until things finally boil over and MAM explodes in popularity, but no matter the timeline, all of the elements for that perfect storm are finally in place.
Buckle up for enterprise mobility—it should be a fun ride.
