Customer relationship management (CRM) is going mobile in a big way. According to research group Gartner (News - Alert), there will be more than 1,200 mobile CRM apps available for download in application marketplaces like iTunes and Google Play by next year. This represents an astonishing 500 percent increase over what was available just last year.

The biggest player in the mobile CRM market is Salesforce.com, which surpassed previous leader SAP (News - Alert) last year. The San Francisco-based company grew its CRM revenue by 26 percent to reach $2.5 billion. SAP, with CRM sales revenue of $2.3 billion, grew in that sector by only 0.1 percent.

"As Salesforce.com has achieved this milestone it will gain more support from Tier 1 system integrators (such as Accenture, IBM, Deloitte and Capgemini (News - Alert)), which already conduct 16 percent of their CRM project work with Salesforce.com,” said Gartner vice president Ed Thompson in a statement. “Additionally, Salesforce.com (News - Alert) will attract more interest from buyers in the many geographies where it does not hold the No. 1 spot.”

Mobile CRM is an extension of a company’s customer service programs into the mobile realm. It allows customers to interact with companies and access a host of customer support applications via mobile devices. In many cases, mobile CRM solutions are designed for users such as sales or marketing personnel who often require remote access to their employer’s main CRM system.

Gartner notes that the mobile CRM market is shaping up in an interesting way, and may be different than some analysts would have predicted a few years ago.

"Many organizations want to extend their customer service to the mobile platform market. However, the reality is that not all good applications make a good mobile application," said Johan Jacobs, research director at Gartner.

To develop a successful mobile application's strategy, says Gartner, IT leaders need to consider four areas, which are demand — what customers want and what the business needs; supply — what staff and skills are needed to manage external partners; control — who owns and manages the strategy, and risks — what could derail the strategy and the other factors that will affect it.

CRM application vendors have to make difficult calls, including which types of mobile CRM to support as well as assessing their functionality as suitable to be broken up into bite-size chunks and adopted as apps. The shift to apps will create a competitive advantage for some CRM vendors, but, they will need to decide whether to provide apps free of charge, in paid versions or both.