With the increased use of mobile devices in the workplace on the back of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) revolution businesses are now faced with the challenge of regulating the use of mobile apps and are finding that an Enterprise App Store can provide users with a consumer-oriented feel while ensuring secure app deployment and complete control over policy for company issued devices and BYOD.
So What Is An Enterprise App Store? Often also referred to as an EAS, it is an online app store that allows companies to supervise and control the security, licensing, distribution and management of mobile apps for its employees.
An EAS can be accessed by the latest mobile devices across multiple platforms and can help a company to ensure that security policies are followed at all times while providing a good user experience, often having a positive effect on an employee’s respect for BYOD security policies.
By deploying apps via a secure company app store, the IT department can regulate availability and use while also having a level of control over mobile, web and cloud software.
The enterprise security team can monitor and review all app downloads to ensure adherence to licences and user rights while having full control over the type of apps that employees can download and use in the workplace. The store could contain a combination of both externally licensed apps along with those developed specifically for the company.
Enterprise App Store vendors are starting to appear with each catering to the different requirements of companies.
Some of the leading vendors at the moment are:
Cisco – Offering both external and internally licensed apps to users.
McAfee – Already well established in the anti-virus and internet security fields, they have now added basic features to their general framework.
Apperian – Have recently included an enterprise app store module for mobile.
iTunes App Store – Although this is not a true enterprise app store, Apple have started to add to their corporate purchasing capabilities by offering app licences in bulk for deployment to employees.
As more employees begin to use mobile devices in the workplace it is critical for companies to maximise the potential productivity increases that BYOD can bring while ensuring that security isn’t compromised.
Whether you have an in-house mobile development team or use a variety of outsourced app developers an enterprise app store can provide the required level of control over all aspects of the process ensuring better compliance and confidence that security policies are being enforced.