A recent AppCentral survey finds that while nearly all enterprises allow access to company resources from employees’ personal devices, enterprise mobility management methods are often outdated.

Among the survey participants, 97 percent of enterprises said they would allow their employees to access corporate data on their own device, while 54 percent of those respondent companies said they still need employees to sign legal or policy documents before accessing corporate resources with their own smartphones or tablets.

According to one quarter of companies responded, they require device “lockdown” software on employee-owned devices, which highlights misalignment of attitudes and policies on managing enterprise mobility.

Enterprises are struggling to effectively manage thousands of incoming iOS and Android (News - Alert) devices used by their workforce, according to the survey by AppCentral, a mobile app developer.

The misalignment happens when users want Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) smartphones and tablets, from which they access personal and corporate apps and data.

Most businesses rely on command and control mobile device management approaches that limit users’ freedom and create greater overhead and total cost of ownership burdens for IT.

“AppCentral is bringing BYOD to the enterprise with a laser focus on enterprise mobile app management that gives users the freedom they want, and IT the control they need,” said Ken Singer, chief executive officer and co-founder of AppCentral, in a statement.

“First-generation MDM solutions are yesterday’s solution to today’s problem. AppCentral’s mobile application management solution enables enterprises, IT, and users to capture the benefits of mobile technology while retaining the right kind of control of the apps,” Singer added.

Recently, a TMCNet report said the European enterprise mobility market is likely to cross the $50 billion mark by the year 2012. In the European enterprise mobility market, Mobile SFA represents one of the largest application segments growing at a significant pace.