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The Bring-Your-Own-App to Work Phenomenon

There's a growing market for business use of mobile application storage and download servers or alternative cloud-based offerings. ABI Research predicts the number of large companies to adopt enterprise app stores will grow at double-digit rates through 2018.

Globally, large enterprise app store adoption will grow at 30.4 percent YoY with the manufacturing and trade industries commanding the largest share of app deployments.

North American and Western European enterprise app store adoption will grow at 20.7 percent and 21.5 percent, respectively.

However, Asia-Pacific will have the most enterprises with enterprise app stores by 2018 -- growing at 59 percent YoY.

"Mobile Application Management is growing in popularity among enterprises looking to deploy flexible mobile solutions to support Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) initiatives," said Jason McNicol, senior analyst at ABI Research.

ABI believes that the problem is finding a scalable solution to deploy enterprise apps without placing additional burdens on IT departments -- that's where a cloud-based solution may be the best option.

Enterprise app stores allow businesses to expand their mobile application portfolio yet control distribution based on role within the organization and company mobile policy.

Other benefits include enabling a mobile workforce with apps that contain key documents (i.e., PowerPoint presentations, videos, work order forms, etc.), custom app deployment to employees, and app lifecycle management (app deployment, maintenance, and retirement).

Savvy IT managers that support BYOD initiatives need to consider Bring-Your-Own-App (BYOA) initiatives as well. Widespread adoption of BYOD has led to an influx of third party apps being used to support business functions (e-mail, calendar, Office docs, document storage etc.).

Instead of blacklisting these apps, enterprises are embracing, securing, and deploying third party apps through the enterprise app store. As such, the enterprise app store is a means to support BYOA.

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