AppCentral Blog

Introducing AppCentral’s Developer Solutions

by Ken Singer

We’ve all seen the explosion of apps in the marketplace. A recent Pew Internet Center study found that 35% of Americans carry smartphones, and more and more smartphone users are turning their devices into a workplace tool. As more companies realize the benefits and efficiencies of their employees utilizing mobile devices, the demand for Business to Employee (B2E) apps will continue to explode. Mobile app developers are already enabling the first-wave of this B2E revolution. To accelerate this opportunity we are excited to announce the launch of the AppCentral Developer Solutions, a free resource for developers that provides the tools needed to build, deploy and manage mobile enterprise apps.

The history of mobile apps has its roots solidly grounded as a consumer technology. While slower to emerge, enterprise mobile app development is gaining traction. ABI Research predicts that there will be 830 million active enterprise mobile app users by 2016. Also, in a recent survey we conducted of 300 enterprise mobile experts and IT professionals, we learned that 60% of respondents reported plans at their company to build at least one mobile app for internal use.

Enterprises have different requirements than consumers, yet their employees still expect ease-of-use and simple functionality. Companies have told us they need deployment solutions that ensure the right employee has access to right app, seamless updating capabilities that won’t impact employee productivity, and increased security to protect company data.

As a developer, you can take advantage of this opportunity if you know how, and it’s our mission to make this possible. Now, developers have one place to go to help them navigate the new realities of the enterprise customer.

With AppCentral’s Developer Solutions you can:

• Test your enterprise apps in productions for up to 20 users.
• Access development tools including Appcelerator’s
• Create an enterprise storefront to deploy your hottest application including up to 4 updates over a 12-month period.
• Leverage best practices and participate in the enterprise app forum

By having dedicated tools for developers, we are returning to our company’s roots—we started out building enterprise mobile apps for large companies. After completing a few applications for our clients, we learned about how challenging (if not impossible) it was for our customers to deploy and manage apps in an enterprise context. Helping our customers solve this problem became our focus. I’m sharing this heritage only to reinforce a common mantra around here—AppCentral is built for developers by developers. Our corporate commitment and my personal dedication to developers is very strong, and we hope you’ll find this program useful.

Check out AppCentral’s Developer Solutions, which provides the tools and information needed to manage the lifecycle of enterprise apps.

Big Brother is Tracking You

by Ken Singer

I remember reading a while ago that police departments around the country are now taught to monitor Facebook regularly, because that’s a good way to keep track of whoever they’re pursuing. Yes, folks, criminals on the lam get caught because they post their whereabouts on Facebook. (Let’s add this to our search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.)

I keep that little factoid in mind because in some ways it’s a perfect representation of the zeitgeist, an extreme example of schizophrenia in the era of social networking. We all say we don’t want the government or employer or anyone else to know what we’re up to, yet many of us chat, post and tweet regularly on every aspect of our lives. We yearn for privacy, but we define it on our own terms.

Let’s Keep Some Things Private

by Ken Singer

We’ve recently learned that mobile devices from Apple—both the iPhone and the iPad—retain ‘locational’ data on their owners’ whereabouts. Each device we own can spit out pinpoint stats on exactly where we’ve been in the past few months. To no one’s surprise, this has got a whole lot of people very upset.

Apple’s fanatical fan base is built around notions of individuality, freedom, privacy and creativity. Yet now, unbeknownst to them, there’s all this data stored in a basic, unencrypted file right on the device? And it’s transferred to another machine it’s synced? And no one told them?

iPad in the Enterprise

by Ken Singer

To many technology veterans, the idea of the Apple iPad becoming entrenched in enterprise computing is nothing short of crazy. Apple? The iPad? In corporate America?

Yes, yes and yes.

This isn’t even a bottom-up stealth exercise conducted by rogue employees; many corporations are actively engaging in large-scale implementation, with management backing and IT support. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that 65% of the Fortune 500 has already deployed iPads or has pilot programs in the works, while trade magazine Network World now puts the figure at 80%. Of course, we don’t know just how many people within these corporations actually have company-purchased iPads, and how many of those are running company-sanctioned applications. But with names like Dupont and JP Morgan Chase in the mix, this is by any definition a big deal.

Go Ahead, Bring Your Own Device

by Ken Singer

I’m always surprised when I hear senior executives acknowledge that their company is bowing to the inevitable and accepting the Bring Your Own Device trend. For good or evil, they say, employees will buy their own mobile devices, install their own applications along with the ones their job requires, and use them simultaneously and seamlessly.

Isn’t this a little short-sighted? Companies should absolutely not accept this trend. They should embrace it.

Let’s back up a little here. Too many of the naysayers seem to have fond memories of the first wave of enterprise mobility, when companies could choose between the Blackberry and. . .well, that was pretty much it. That platform had great e-mail functionality, the necessary contact and calendaring applications (just about the only business aps that everyone needed), and reliable tech support. For purchasing decision makers, it was a no-brainer.