We’ve had an amazing year here at App47. Back in January, we saw that 2011 had great potential to be the year mobile Apps made their presence known in the enterprise. With the mass adoption of smartphones and tablets to read email, collaborate and use the web for our work, it is only obvious that the enterprise will take advantage of all the same capabilities that we’ve grown to expect in our consumer oriented mobile Apps.
OK, so maybe that was a bit optimistic. What we saw instead was the enterprise implementing MDM solutions to secure the new devices showing up at work, and feeling more comfortable managing the new edge of IT, mobile devices. With that comfort level, the focus is now turning to the mobile Apps that employees are either building themselves, or demanding from IT. Just as we saw in the creative nature of consumer oriented Apps (who ever though they wanted an iFart app?) we are seeing the same level of enthusiasm and eureka moments for enterprise Apps. These range from the expected Point of Sale, Time Sheet, Sales Force Automation Apps to HR employee peer reward, construction foreman productivity management, and hospital patient care Apps.
Going into into the new year, we believe now more than ever that 2012 will be the year that Enterprise Apps come of age and are deployed en masse. Starting with the focus on Enterprise App Stores and how to set them up and secure the store. However, we’ve seen this before in IT. The first focus is how do I get the new technology out there, then the question is asked, how do I manage it? Like many things in mobile, the transition to the next set of questions is not too far away.
At App47, we are excited by the conversations, opportunities and activities we have going into 2012, and we really can’t say it enough that we believe it is time for mobile apps to fuel the enterprise mobile workforce.
