New Enterprise Mobile Report Details iOS Dominance, Most Popular Business Apps

The latest version of Good Technology‘s quarterly Good Mobility Index report suggests that Apple devices remain popular in the enterprise, while companies are developing more mobile apps than ever before.

The report, “Good Technology Mobility Index Report Q4 2013,” is based on data collected by Good, a provider of mobile security products for enterprises, from its customer base of more than 5,000 organizations in more than 130 countries and across a wide range of industries, including commercial banking, insurance, healthcare, retail, government, manufacturing and aerospace and defense. The report looks at the devices being used by Good customers and the enterprise applications they’re deploying — but it’s not necessarily representatives of the full mobility space, because the data is specific to Good customers.

Platforms and Devices

The report showed the notable dominance of Apple’s iOS across Good’s customers. Activations of iOS devices represented 73 percent of all device activation in the fourth quarter of 2013, a minor increase from 72 percent in Q3 and 69 percent in the second quarter of last year, according to Good. Android represented 26 percent of activations, down one percentage point from the previous quarter, and Window Phone made up the remaining one percent of total activations, the report says.

(In contrast, Android owns the total global mobile space outside of the enterprise, with 81 percent of the market in Q3 2013, according to IDC. That’s compared to 12.9 market share for iOS, 3.6 percent for Windows Phone and 1.7 percent for BlackBerry.)

The Good Dynamics Secure Mobility Platform currently manages iOS, Android and Window Phone devices, so these are the only platforms included in the report. BlackBerrys, for example, are managed via BlackBerry Enterprise Service/Server (BES) or directly via Microsoft Exchange; as such, they’re not represented in Good’s report.

BlackBerry devices are prevalent in many enterprises, so Good’s platform numbers are somewhat misrepresentative of the overall enterprise mobility picture. For example, BlackBerry says that more than 30,000 BES 10 commercial and test servers have been installed globally and nearly 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies use BlackBerry products.

iPhones represented 54 percent of all devices activated by Good customers in Q4, according to the company, while iPads made up 19 percent of activations. Android smartphones represented 24 percent of all activations, and Android tablets made up two percent of total activations.

Talking specifically about tablet activations, iPads made up 91.4 percent of all activations, while Android represented just 8.6 percent of tablets activated by customers.

The Good customer industries with the most device activations in the period were financial services (39.3 percent); business and professional services (19.6 percent); manufacturing (11.6 percent); government and public sector (6.5 percent) and healthcare (5.3 percent).

Enterprise Applications

The total number of enterprise applications activated in the fourth quarter of 2013 increased by 54 percent, up from an increase of 43 percent in the previous quarter, Good says, spotlighting the growing focus on enterprise apps by businesses.

Development of custom applications grew by 55 percent during the period, up from a growth rate of 52 percent from Q2 to Q3 2013, according to the report.

The most popular kinds of enterprise apps used by Good’s customer for both smartphones and tablets were document-editing apps, custom-designed app and apps for enterprise-file access. Good also says its customers are increasingly interested in business intelligence apps. The apps that saw the most notable amounts of growth from Q3 to Q4 2013 are BI, secure browser and social business, according to the report.

You can learn more about Good Technology and its quarterly Mobile Index Report on the company’s website.

AS

Al Sacco covers Mobile and Wireless for CIO.com. Follow Al on Twitter @ASacco. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline, Facebook, Google + and LinkedIn.