Mobile application market set for stellar growth

The global mobile enterprise application market is poised for stellar growth fuelled by the fast growing popularity of mobile working, research has predicted.

A new IDC study suggests that the mobile enterprise application market reached US$1.2bn in 2005 and is forecast to grow to US$3.5bn in 2010, representing a compound annual growth rate of 23 percent.

"Vendors and organisations alike must recognise that mobile enterprise applications are not just about mobilising a particular application, but delivering a set of composite applications based on the mobile workers' business processes," said Stephen Drake, programme director for IDC's mobile enterprise research.

"Recognising this, the underlying platform infrastructure plays a critical role in the delivery of such applications. Vendors must continue to enhance their platform or look to support other existing platforms.

"Organisations should seek out suppliers that offer a robust underlying infrastructure to support the applications and provide enterprise-grade scalability for future expansion."

Mary Wardley, vice president of IDC's CRM applications research, added: "The worldwide growth of cellular networks, the proliferation of handheld devices, and a general level of 'connection' in individuals' personal lives are quickly finding their way into the enterprise.

"The current trend in enterprise applications is to 'mobilise' the application by giving employees access to salient portions of the application's content while working in an 'always available' mode with various levels of connectivity."

The IDC research also indicates that the entry into mobile enterprise applications is one that all enterprise applications vendors must consider and include in their applications portfolio to a greater or lesser extent.

In order to be successful, IDC recommends that vendors realign their understanding of the user experience in the context of mobile enterprise applications.

The value to the user will be increased by what is not visible to them by virtue of the behind-the-scenes automation.

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