Survey: 2014 state of enterprise mobility

1. Summary

The mobile enterprise market has been upended over the past several years as the growing BYOD trend has forced businesses to rethink their strategies and IT departments to support a range of devices and operating systems. Security concerns and numerous other challenges continue to forestall growth of the mobile data market in the enterprise, however, and many businesses are still struggling to support the use of smartphones and tablets for anything other than voice conversations and email.

Meanwhile a substantial portion of the enterprise is already embracing the early wave of connected devices beyond PCs and smartphones, and an even larger portion plans to support such devices in the near future. In many cases, those new devices will be deployed as IT departments are still playing catch-up when it comes to managing employees’ iOS and Android gadgets. So while businesses continue to struggle to leverage mobile to increase productivity and lower costs, they’re facing growing challenges in managing an ever-broadening range of devices and the data those devices generate.

This report analyzes data from Gigaom Research’s “2014 enterprise mobility IT buyers survey” to illustrate both the current state of the mobile enterprise as well as its direction over the next several years. It will evaluate important trends and discuss a variety of strategies including which operating systems are being supported, how (or whether) businesses are paying for BYOD devices, and how they’re dealing with management and security concerns on employee-owned gadgets.

Key findings in this report include:

• The long-term market is promising for tasks such as conferencing, file sharing, productivity, and collaboration, and it will grow as new connected devices such as hybrid tablets gain traction and as enterprise apps become more optimized for touchscreens. But in the short term, those adoptions will struggle.
• Businesses will continue to struggle with mobile security and management strategies and policies over the next several years as the internet of things evolves and mobile app usage continues to soar on multiple platforms.
• The market for managed-mobility-services vendors is already ripe, and demand for such services will grow as the enterprise increasingly supports a variety of connected mobile devices beyond smartphones and tablets.
• Android and iOS are the most supported mobile app platforms in the enterprise, and iOS is likely to build a modest lead in the short term. The market remains relatively untapped, however, and Android could emerge as the dominant OS in the enterprise if its fragmentation and security concerns can be addressed.

Thumbnail image courtesy of: iStock/Thinkstock.