One Quarter of Enterprises Will Have App Stores by 2017

By Amber Ankerholz

Gartner Inc. predicts that 25 percent of enterprises will have an enterprise app store for managing user apps on PCs as well as mobile devices by 2017.

Many enterprises are struggling to determine how best to support employee-owned devices, such as smartphones and tablet computers, and many are looking for ways to manage the provisioning of mobile apps.

“Apps downloaded from public app stores for mobile devices disrupt IT security, application and procurement strategies,” said Ian Finley, research vice president at Gartner. “Enterprise app stores promise at least a partial solution but only if IT security, application, procurement and sourcing professionals can work together to successfully apply the app store concept to their enterprises,” he said.

According to Gartner, enterprise app stores could help automate the procurement of enterprise software licenses. They could also provide greater control over the apps used by employees, more control over software expenditures, and more negotiating leverage with app vendors. Gartner recommends that enterprises transition away from choosing devices and software for users and instead, establish “transparent and enforced app curation policies.”

Overall, the success of enterprise app stores will depend on the number of apps offered. “Without a dynamic selection of apps to choose from, users will eventually have little reason to continue to visit an enterprise app store,” the report says.

02/15/2013