As per recent Gartner report, by 2017, a quarter of all enterprises will have their own app stores for the employees. The primary cause for this is the rapid adoption of mobile technology by the employees and customers alike. With mobile adoption comes the need for apps, and with need for apps comes the need to securely distribute them. Increasingly, businesses are finding consumer mobile app stores inadequate for distribution of enterprise applications. These storefronts offer little in the way of security, vetting and control. Distribution-especially to large work forces-is cumbersome. Enter the enterprise App store.
There are many players providing mobile enterprise app stores, the latest big name to enter being SAP. Verizon also provides its white-labeled corporate app store, which comes with your company’s logo and color scheme. This industry will continue morphing as vendors, service providers and the businesses themselves explore various approaches. At the end of the day, of course, no single formula will emerge. Rather, different types of enterprise-focused app stores-some of them as simple as areas set aside at the consumer-oriented app stores-will establish themselves.
Options:
There are essentially 2 categories of app stores – One for the executives and CXOs, and another for the remaining employees. In the second category, there are 3 methods of implementation – Firstly, there are those that are located within the consumer marketplaces, such as Google Play and Apple's App Store; Second type of app stores that aggregate enterprise applications from these stores and offer them to the corporate world; and, finally, there are enterprise stores that offer their own applications.
Features:
To be successful, enterprise application distribution systems should have some necessary characteristics.
1. Access Control – This is an important feature. The access needs to be controlled for different profile of users. For e.g. the finance department people should not have access to salesforce.com app. This may require integration with the active directory or HRMS.
2. Registration – As important it is to allow access based on user profiles, for enhanced security, it is equally important to give access to only known devices. The registration of devices ensures that only the authorized devices are allowed to use the app store.
3. Security – VPN-only access and intense application testing are some of the important features which ensure the users can be sure of the application that they download, and the enterprise is certain that only bona fide devices and users get access.
4. Centralized control – Since the enterprise marketplace has to be closely monitored and regulated, it is imperative that they be managed well. In order to reduce the management complexity, there should be a centralized management console for the same, where IT can upload, approve, or reject applications.
5. Cross-platform compatibility – Since the device and OS types in the enterprise are generally disparate, it is important that the download options are compatible with the devices. Ideally, the app store should provide employees with the choice to download apps either directly via the enterprise app marketplace or via their mobile Web browser.
6. App updates – Organizations change. Policies change. Functionalities change. Therefore, it is imperative that the apps will also change. The user must be provided notifications and access to app updates, upgrades, security patches and so on. Supporting OTA or over-the-air updates enables users to easily apply these updates on their devices, without having to spend unnecessary time and effort.
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