Today's workforce is an increasingly mobile one, with workers spending less time behind their desks and more time on-the-go than ever before. The newfound mobility of employees – made possible by recent advances in smartphone and tablet technology – is a bit of a double-edged sword for enterprises.
On the one hand, employees are much more productive when they have 24/7 access to business-critical applications. But to create this "always on" environment, enterprises need to build mobile apps and continually test and monitor their usability, performance and availability.
With the consumerization of IT and the burgeoning Bring Your Own Device phenomenon, this task has become exceedingly difficult for a company to accomplish on their own due to the sheer number of platforms that are on the market.
Instead, many companies have started turning to mobile application lifecycle managers, which handle all the planning, support, testing and post-deployment monitoring phases of the app development lifecycle.
To learn more about this market, TMC (News - Alert) CEO Rich Tehrani recently reached out to Leila Modarres, head of marketing at Keynote DeviceAnywhere, maker of the enterprise-class mobile application lifecycle management (mALM) product suite. The two caught up with each other before heading down to ITEXPO East 2012, currently underway in Miami.
Check out the interview below to learn more about the app lifecycle management market or head to ITEXPO East 2012 to hear directly from the Keynote DeviceAnywhere team. The company's senior director of business development, Eric Weinberg, will be helping to lead two ITEXPO sessions, both concerning the cloud's role in enterprise architecture.
What was the most significant technological advancement in the past 12 months and why?
One of the most significant technological advancements in the past 12 months is the capability for enterprise organizations to work with a single company like Keynote DeviceAnywhere to manage their entire mobile application lifecycle, from the planning stages all the way through to execution and analysis.
This alleviates the need for organizations to hire one company for R&D and planning to determine which devices and platforms they should support in their mobile initiatives, and another for testing and QA purposes, and yet another for post-deployment monitoring.
Keynote DeviceAnywhere’s mobile application lifecycle management (mALM) product suite is a one-stop shop for all phases of the application development lifecycle. According to Frost & Sullivan, Keynote DeviceAnywhere is the first company to recognize this need and the first to offer a complete, end-to-end resource for mALM.
On the other hand, more than 2,000 organizations, including half of the Fortune 100, rely on Keynote DeviceAnywhere’s mALM platform to help bring their businesses and brands to the mobile channel, validating that this advancement is imperative and significant.
What has been the biggest trend in your market segment and how is it impacting your customers?
Consumerization of IT and BYOD have become pervasive trends in our market segment as more and more employees are using their personal mobile devices for business-related activities. At the same time, enterprise CIOs and IT departments have no choice but to accommodate their employees because mobility is no longer a nice-to-have, but a strategic asset that can be tied back to business objectives and impact the bottom line.
As such, many customers are looking to Keynote DeviceAnywhere to help them with mALM, from the planning stages all the way through to execution and analysis. More than ever, customers rely on Keynote DeviceAnywhere as a strategic asset in helping them to successfully extend their businesses and brands to the mobile channel.
What is the biggest challenge facing your customers today and how is your company helping address that challenge?
Our customers are challenged with being able to manage device diversity in their mobile initiatives. Should they develop for iOS, Android or both? How do they manage hundreds of BlackBerry (News 
- Alert) models? Once app development is complete, how will they ensure that the end-user experience is at its best? Once the app is deployed, how will they monitor the apps to ensure quality, security and optimal performance to minimize downtime and maximize ROI?
These are only a few of the concerns that persist as our customers kick off and maintain their mobile projects. Keynote DeviceAnywhere is helping to address device diversity by providing a free resource called the Device Planner as part of the company’s mALM suite of products. The Device Planner is a tool that enables users to analyze and assess the best devices and mobile operating systems for their mobile content and services based on target audience, performance requirements and market coverage.
This resource provides customized recommendations regarding which devices and platforms to support and helps to optimize test plans before beginning mobile app development. This ensures that all apps are optimized on the right devices and the right platforms to maximize reach with target audiences. The Keynote DeviceAnywhere Device Planner can be accessed for free here.
How has the cloud impacted your business? How has it impacted your customers?
Every company is different and has a different set of application, performance, security and compliance requirements. Therefore, a lot of companies have serious reservations when dealing with the cloud. But, as a company that provides cloud-based services, Keynote DeviceAnywhere understands that there are benefits that customers receive when leveraging the cloud.
In terms of cost-savings, for a company to build a system of test devices behind their own firewall in a private cloud would be extremely expensive. Keynote DeviceAnywhere is able to provide the same testing capabilities through the cloud. If an on-site test bed is a requirement, say, for security reasons, Keynote DeviceAnywhere is capable of building this test system for customers behind their own firewall, saving them costs in all aspects including R&D, planning, deployment, maintenance and importantly, obtaining all the smart devices necessary to test on. The cost-savings of utilizing the cloud capabilities from Keynote DeviceAnywhere is enormous.
Flexibility is another benefit of using the cloud. Customers appreciate that they can ramp up and scale back at short notice, which would be very difficult to replicate outside of the cloud. Finally, ease of management – knowing that Keynote DeviceAnywhere is able to manage every upgrade and patch -- can ease the lives of many CIOs and IT managers.
With Microsoft (News - Alert) touting tight integration between its mobile and desktop OS, can it become a major competitor in the enterprise mobile market?
Just like the consumer market, there are essentially “three screens” in the enterprise mobile market as well – desktop/laptop computers, smartphones and tablets. In order for enterprise organizations to succeed, they must consider all three screens in their mobile initiatives.
More and more employees are using smartphones and tablets for business purposes and saving computers for more basic functions like word processing. If organizations have productivity or business software on computers, they must also make the same or a similar app available on smartphones and tablets.
Microsoft’s strong integration between its mobile and desktop OS is a move in the right direction which will compel other major players like Apple (News - Alert) and Google to tighten up their three screens integration further in order to penetrate deeper into the enterprise markets.
What can attendees expect from your company at ITEXPO?
Keynote DeviceAnywhere will be speaking on two panels. The first is “Moving to the Cloud: What Cloud-Based Services Means for the Enterprise” on Wednesday, February 1 at 9:00a.m. in Room B212.
The second is “Cloud as Part of Your Overall Enterprise Architecture” on the same day at 10:00a.m. in the same room. Keynote DeviceAnywhere will discuss business benefits of leveraging the cloud in terms of mobility. Doing so makes viable and financial sense for enterprise organizations by providing flexibility of resource allocation while enabling growth through dynamic pay-as-you-grow service options.
Make one technology prediction for 2012 and consider its impact.
“BYOD” and “Consumerization of IT” have been overused terminologies in 2011 and rightly so. More and more employees are bringing their personal smart devices into the workplace for business use and this trend is going to grow until organizations give in and let employees “have their way” with technology.
But it’s not the smart devices that will drive business innovation; it’s the apps on them. In order to mobilize more processes, businesses are purchasing or developing apps tailored to their particular, mission critical needs. Those who have realized and embraced the benefits provided by apps go as far as establishing their own internal app stores, like IBM’s (News - Alert) “Whirlwind” and Genentech’s “On the Road.” Apps for collaboration, data collection, CRM and industry-specific ones such as medical apps make for a more innovative and streamlined business.
As more employees demand mobile business apps, CIOs and IT managers will listen and spend a larger chunk of their IT budgets than in past years to either develop apps internally or purchase them from third-parties. They will realize that, in order to fully reap the ROI from mobilization, they have to enhance what employees can do with their smart devices well beyond its native functions.
Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO East 2012, happening NOW in Miami, FL. ITEXPO offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO registration click here.
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Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Rich Steeves
