Mobile Apps Going Mainstream for the Enterprise

The most recent enterprise player to enter the app store arena is none other than Motorola, which at this time last year was given up for dead in the mobile handset space. It is now winning plaudits for its Blur software, which will sync contact lists and calendars on its newly introduced Cliq phone to users' desktops.

 

There's a lot more to mobile apps than merely synchronizing data, however, if smartphones are truly going to become ubiquitous business tools.

 

Thus, the appearance of numerous vendors developing mobile applications designed especially for business applications like SAP's ERP and business intelligence suites. MeLLmo, whose founder, Santiago Becerra, created Xcelsius, the technology underlying Business Objects' Crystal Reports, exists solely for the purpose of creating improved visualizations of BI reports on Apple iPhones.

 

According to Becerra, this application can resolve the principal drawback to viewing business reports on a smartphone, which he said was "like viewing a laptop screen through a straw." When Mellmo launched the

application this spring, Becerra noted that large enterprises increasingly rely on workers who are on the road and said, "what is the value of having a $10 million SAP installation that people can't read?"

 

No less a mainstream technology vendor than Intel also announced plans last week to launch its own App Store, which it will use to sell applications for both smartphones as well as so-called mobile Internet

devices (MIDs).

 

This week's International CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment conference in San Diego is sure to bring even more attention to the importance of mobile apps, which are becoming a greater and greater mainstay of the road warrior's arsenal.