In a move indicating the emerging popularity of new distribution strategies for providers of mobile services and applications, Israeli-based IT Service Management (ITSM) vendor SysAid unveiled Android support for its IT asset tracking and service ticket software, making the mobile application available for free through the Android Market.
IT Service Management is a rapidly growing subset of the asset tracking and field service marketplace, and aims to provide IT professionals with the ability to track all IT assets from laptops to servers and manage and resolve the submission of help desk tickets.
With the new Android application available from SysAid, users of the SysAid suite will be able to monitor and manage helpdesk requests and IT assets from Android devices. The company also supports mobile applications for its software suite on BlackBerry and iPhone devices, too.
Here’s why it’s important. ISVs like SysAid are looking to mobile marketplaces available from Apple and Google to distribute their applications, where, before, software vendors playing in the enterprise mobile market used to count on resellers and service providers for provisioning and supporting enterprise devices. The consumerization of IT is driving consumer-grade devices into the enterprise, and that means ISVs that want to play, need to support multiple OS.
In addition, the use of third-party application stores as the origin of application distribution means mobile deployments are becoming less custom and more packaged. That means less mobile-related professional services costs for enterprise applications. This market trend validates SAP’s recent purchase of mobile infrastructure vendor Sybase, and demonstrates that the money in enterprise mobility is not in custom development, but in value-added services and packaged, easy-to-deploy applications.
SysAid is offering the mobile component of their application suite for free to users of its ITSM application. That’s a far cry from the days of multi-million dollar price tags for enterprise mobile applications that required enterprise licenses and on-going services maintenance, and demonstrates that businesses are increasingly looking at the mobile channel as a checkbox for enterprise application suites.
The company says it is the only IT Service Management company with mobile helpdesk solutions for the most popular mobile technology platforms. Noticeably missing is Windows Mobile support – another indication of Microsoft’s lost market share in the enterprise and consumer device marketplaces.
SysAid says that it is offering ITSM mobile apps to help its customers increase efficiency.
“Companies need to know that they can rely on their IT management at all times. As we have seen with our applications for iPhone and Blackberry, mobility allows IT management teams to enjoy maximum efficiency, translating into greater productivity," said Israel Lifshitz, founder and CEO of SysAid.
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