iOS Apps in the Enterprise

Whenever apps are mentioned for iPhone or iPad, people naturally think of the public App Store as the method of distribution. For most applications, this is perfectly fine—Apple handles the storage and distribution of apps ensuring they can reach the widest possible audience. Anyone, from the bedroom coder to the largest corporate, can write and deploy their apps safe in the knowledge that someone else is handling the bandwidth, e-commerce, and security issues that come with internet-based stores. For many customers, we publish their apps through the public App Store.

However, one downside to the public App Store is that anyone can download your app and see what it can do. Perfect for a consumer product or game, but not great for commercially sensitive enterprise applications. Another downside is that pre-configuration of an app might be difficult as it may expose internal server names or locations—something an IT security team would object to.

For many businesses, smartphones and tablets are perfect platforms to build new ways of working. Many job roles require email, web access, and a few specific internal tools. Writing a native app releases employees from the constraints of traditional laptops and associated management costs, aids secure storage and delivery of commercially sensitive data, and provides a fast, accessible method of accessing corporate systems offline and on the go.

The iOS Enterprise Developer Programme from Apple allows a business to write and deploy native apps outside of the public App Store directly to employees. These apps can be as corporate-specific as needed, pre-configured, and ready to go. Deployment can be as simple as a web link from an intranet or as part of a well-defined Mobile Device Management (MDM) policy.

We’ve been developing bespoke applications for many years, so we understand that for many companies, highly specific custom software applications are necessary to run their operations.

So, next time you think:

• “I’d love Sales to have a fast collateral and pricing tool, but can’t let it get into the hands of my competitors.”
• “Everyone should be able to raise a holiday request from their phone.”
• “Our internal manufacturing systems are proprietary, but we need to give staff access in the field.”
• “We have 20 meeting rooms across 5 different offices, how can we make the booking process easy?”

With a custom iOS app, you can achieve your goals of efficient working, reduce IT support costs, and gain a competitive edge.