Mobile Enterprise Adoption News.
[MEAN] Summary:
- Citrix’s Q4 Enterprise Mobile Report shows Apple winning in enterprise mobile
- Great Point: Apple for 1-to-1 mobile business consumer engagement. Internal fleets? Android aka cheaper to outfit large fleets.
- Paging BlackBerry. “Where you at, bro?”
- Enterprise iOS adoption is here to stay. (Sadly. Signed, DroidFanBoy98)
By: James Bourne
According to cloud provider Citrix, in its Enterprise Mobility Cloud Report Q4 2012, Apple devices continued to dominate the mobile enterprise, although Android certainly had its advantages.
The report, which surveyed Citrix customers currently with EMM (enterprise mobility management) in the cloud, concluded that iOS platforms proved better for those enterprises where there was a lot of one-on-one customer engagement, such as retail, whilst Android was better for mobile field service organisations.
The research also emphasised the ever-continuing importance of tablets in the enterprise – tablets globally accounted for 53% of iOS devices, with the majority being found in North America and EMEA.
Enterprises differed in their OS choice dependent on geographical region, yet iOS was dominant in all cases. Asia Pacific saw the most Apple adoption, with three quarters of respondents on an iDevice, whilst 62% of those in North America used Apple.
The EMEA region showed more inflection, with Windows Mobile (21%) showing relatively sophisticated integration compared to Android (36%) and market leader Apple (43%).
Globally, iOS was ahead on 58%, compared to Android (35%) and Windows (7%).
The Citrix research also showed intriguing insights in terms of OS adoption by specific vertical.
The energy sector, entertainment industry, insurance, legal and leisure sectors had 90% or higher iOS adoption, whilst communications, healthcare and transportation was 75% or higher Android.
Startlingly, according to respondents, the oil and gas sector utilised Windows Mobile in the vast majority, whilst intriguingly the “high tech” sector was a near 50-50 split between iOS and Droid.
The research also revealed that the most popular third party apps in enterprise app stores, excluding Citrix’s own Receiver, were NitroDesk TouchDown, Adobe Reader, Numbers and Box, with Salesforce, Dropbox and Evernote making the top 10.
Interestingly, Facebook was in the top 10, the only social media app to chart. With the consumerisation of IT going further into full swing, the traditional view – as eWeek opined at the end of last year – was that BYOD and social media is a recipe for disaster.
Yet, to quote Bob Dylan, the times, they are a-changin’. A recent report from Ovum on behalf of Dimension Data Canada revealed that 60% of Canadian firms use social media apps for corporate usage.
As Darryl Wilson, director of advance solutions and enterprise services for Dimension Data, said: “[Canadian enterprises] look at BYOD and social media not for cost savings but more to boost employee productivity and retain talent.”
Which OS do you use in the enterprise, and are you happy with it?
