ABI Research says Worldwide Enterprise App Store Adoption Expected to Triple by 2018

 A recent report by ABI Research estimates that by 2018 the number of enterprise app stores will have tripled after year over year double digit growth rate. Worldwide growth is anticipated to be 30.4% annually, with Asia-Pac leading the charge at 59% annually. North America and Western Europe are expected to see annual adoption grow by about 21% each.  This further supports the suggestion that large enterprise companies are looking for ways to support their employees and their business through mobile app development and adoption. 

As employee demand for BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) options increase, companies are looking for ways to effectively develop and manage mobile strategies that address this demand and allow the delivery of high quality, cross platform mobile apps as part of the initiative. These mobile apps, and the delivery system they reside on, need to be flexible, scalable, secure and easily managed. They need to readily support BYOD, the third party apps users are bringing to the table and the new business-related and company specific apps many enterprise organizations will need to build. 

James McNicol, Senior Analyst at ABI said in the report, 'Mobile Application Management is growing in popularity among enterprises looking to deploy flexible mobile solutions to support Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) initiatives. The problem is finding a scalable solution to deploy enterprise apps without placing additional burdens on IT departments. Enterprise app stores allow enterprises to expand their mobile application portfolio yet control distribution based on role and mobile policy.'

Leveraging employees for the highest levels of productivity and efficiency means delivering mobile options that put daily business tasks in their hands, anytime, from anywhere. Clearly the organizations looking to streamlining their business operations through work force mobilization will only further sharpen their competitive edge. Adopting BYOD and enterprise app store initiatives is one step. Enabling rapid development of cross platform, robust, scalable, high performance, native apps is the other. 

Alex