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Apple Continues Enterprise Blitz-Crawl: Page 2 of 3

But on the whole and despite a rise in mobility computing in general, he maintains the PC will remain a fixture in the enterprise.

As Apple increasingly becomes an enterprise player, some have voiced concern over the vendor’s walled garden approach to its products. Marko dismisses this as mere bellyaching, more than a legitimate complaint.

“I’ve heard more complaining than actual concrete (arguments). People do whine about Apple being not enterprise-friendly,” he remarks. “The survey asked what are the reasons for limiting the support of Apple devices? In dead last from the multiple choice answers was ‘Apple is difficult to do business with’.

“The top response was ‘our apps aren’t available on Macs or iOS’. The next response was ‘we don’t have Apple expertise’ . . . when it comes down to it, people in IT are not only more conservative, they’re more comfortable dealing with Microsoft, just as they always have.”

Moreover, on the subject of mobility computing and what’s dubbed BYOD (bring your own device), he notes change is occurring in terms of how organizations manage and monitor devices and sensitive data.

“You’re seeing a partitioning of the device environment from the data and the apps, where the employee has more control over the direct interface but they’re accessing data that’s remote,” he says. “From a management standpoint, we’re seeing companies look to software products to manage more heterogeneous environments, whether it’s MDM (mobile device management) software that manages mobile devices, or traditional endpoint management products.”

True, MDM is a critical piece of the puzzle, but so too is mobile app management (MAM) and/or possibly deploying a private enterprise app store that vendors such as Partnerpedia, Apperian, and App47 provide.