Mobile Unified Communications Featured Article

Users of enterprise business-to-employee (B2E) and business to customer (B2C) smartphone and media tablet mobile applications are likely to grow at a CAGR of 90 percent and touch 830 million active users by 2016, according to ABI Research (News - Alert).

This growing segment includes B2E apps such as line-of-business apps and B2C, branded company apps.

Enterprise smartphone and media tablet adoption is providing the foundation for enterprise app development and deployment, ABI Research said in its reported called “Mobile Enterprise Applications for Smartphones and Media Tablets.”  

“Mobile suppliers are providing the critical enablers boosting app adoption,” said Dan Shey (News - Alert), enterprise practice director, ABI Research, in a statement.

From the demand side, the growth is primarily driven by consumption among enterprises which are leveraging their growing number of corporate data to make employees more efficient and to strengthen customer stickiness.

From the supply side, the prime drivers include the increase in the number of providers of mobile application platforms. Leveraging mobile application platforms, an app can be written once and deployed across multiple devices in the fragmented smartphone and tablet supplier market.

There are also cost-effective platforms which also provide management and system integration capabilities.

Cloud services are the second main driver. Many mobile application and app platform providers offer cloud services as a component of the application. This reduces the investment for businesses, opening up the market for smaller organizations.

Recently, a study by the USC Marshall Institute for Communication Technology Management highlighted the increasing penetration of tablets and smartphones in the North American market.

According to their study, tablet ownership in North American households is projected to increase from 8 percent in 2011 to 27 percent in 2012. The biggest growth in tablet users will be among 13-44 year olds.