Other Than E-Mail, Calendar and Contacts, Business Use is Spotty

According to Forrester, enterprises have been slow to adopt mobile applications other than e-mail, calendar and contacts. This is good news for RIM - BlackBerry is still great in these areas. But the fact that enterprises haven't ventured much beyond these applications may have a bit to do with the limitations of off-the-shelf solutions (see below). Since RIM continues to dominate the enterprise market, and BlackBerry OS has been notoriously difficult to program for (though that may be changing), it probably should be no surprise that the areas RIM excels at are the most commonly used.

Other mobile apps in use include: "emergency response (24%), sales force
automation (21%), customer-facing mobile applications (19%), and field service apps (18%)."

Custom Apps Dominate, But Off-The-Shelf Solutions Are Insurgent

According to Forrester's research, custom built enterprise mobile apps for specific situations are most common. But 27% have bought business apps from app stores and 24% have used apps that are extensions of other enterprise applications.

Mobile middleware platform use isn't common, only about 5% are using it, but Forrester expects its use to become more common.

Off-The-Shelf Mobile Apps Leave Something To Be Desired

According to Forrester, "The applications we reviewed generally offered limited functionality, restricted platform choice, and evolving selling and pricing models." In other words: they generally aren't very good.

Enterprise Mobile Apps Are Extremely Niche

Most applications in use are designed for task-workers with very specific features and hardware. Freight shipping and car returns, for example.

What's Driving Improvement

Here's what's driving change in enterprise mobility, according to Forrester:

• Bandwidth and browsing capabilities are limited but improving
• Pricing and delivery models must be aligned with adoption patterns
• Security and control capabilities are evolving for mobile apps, along with IT policies
• The pace of mobile innovation creates an unstable environment for standardized apps

Where NOT to Use Mobile Apps

Forrester dedicates a page to listing possible scenarios for mobile apps, but a quick look at where mobile apps won't be useful is more illuminating:

• Intensive data entry
• Data-intensive displays.
• Walk-up customer service
• Text and graphic content authoring (unless improved entry devices and software are
• developed)

Where's It's All Going

This sums up Forrester's predictions:

See Also

How to Plan Mobile Enterprise Development Using Forrester's POST Strategy

Android apps for enterprise

European Commission Rejects BlackBerry in Favor of iPhones and HTC Phones