Mobile Market Shifts Toward Android, but Apple Still Dominates

Long dominated by Apple, the mobile computing market may be in the early stages of a significant transition. While demand for mobile computing applications continues to skyrocket, the latest Mobility Index report from Good Technology, a provider of mobile applications and development tools, finds that Google Android tablets and smartphones are starting to gain share in terms of increased activations. Apple still clearly dominates the category, but from a solution providers' perspective, increased usage of Google Android devices will make managing mobile computing even more challenging. As is often the case with IT management in the channel, increased complexity is a double-edged sword. The need for mobile management services will undoubtedly increase, but in almost direct proportion to the cost of delivering those services. In the meantime, demand for mobile applications continues to skyrocket. Document editing applications dominate, but, in terms of tablets and smartphones, custom applications remain in third place. Demand for business intelligence (BI) and customer relationship management (CRM) applications is also rising sharply. From just about any angle, mobile computing in the enterprise is shaping up to be a major market opportunity across multiple classes of products and services that the channel can no longer afford to ignore.