Mobile Application Management (MAM) describes software and services that accelerate and simplify the creation of internally-developed or “in-house” enterprise mobile applications. It also describes the deployment and management of in-house and commercially available mobile apps used in business settings on both company-provided and “bring your own” smartphones and tablet computers.

Mobile application management has also been defined as “the strategy and process around developing/procuring, securing, deploying, accessing, configuring, updating and removing (business) applications from mobile devices used by the employees.”

The Mobility Invasion and ‘BYOD’

Enterprise MAM has been driven by the widespread adoption and use of mobile devices in business settings. IDC

International Data Corporation

International Data Corporation is a market research and analysis firm specializing in information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology. IDC is a subsidiary of International Data Group...

 reported that smartphone use in the workplace will double between 2009 and 2014.

The BYOD (“Bring Your Own Device”) phenomenon is a factor behind mobile application management, with personal PC, smartphone and tablet use in business settings (vs. business-owned devices) rising from 31 percent in 2010 to 41 percent in 2011. When an employees brings a personal device into an enterprise setting, MAM enables the corporate IT staff to provision the device, download appropriate applications, control access to back-end data, and “wipe” the device if it is lost, or when its owner no longer works with the company.

Use of mobile devices in the workplace also being driven from above. According to Forrester Research

Forrester Research

Forrester Research is an independent technology and market research company that provides its clients with advice about technology's impact on business and consumers. Forrester Research has five research centers in the US: Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York, New York; San Francisco, California;...

, businesses now see mobile as an opportunity to drive innovation across a wide range of business processes. Forrester issued a forecast in August 2011 predicting that the “mobile management services market” would reach $6.6 billion by 2015 – a 69 percent increase over a previous forecast issued six months earlier.

Citing the plethora of mobile devices in the enterprise – and a growing demand for mobile apps from employees, line-of-business decision-makers, and customers – the report states that organizations are broadening their “mobility strategy” beyond mobile device management to “managing a growing number of mobile applications.”

Applications

The original business apps on mobile devices – email, calendar and contact databases – are being supplemented with mobile enterprise apps such as:

• Corporate data access and decision support
  Decision support system
  A decision support system is a computer-based information system that supports business or organizational decision-making activities. DSSs serve the management, operations, and planning levels of an organization and help to make decisions, which may be rapidly changing and not easily specified in...
  
  
• CRM
  Customer relationship management
  Customer relationship management is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing,...
  
   and sales force automation
  Sales force management system
  Sales force management systems are information systems used in CRM marketing and management that help automate some sales and sales force management functions...
  
  
• Disaster recovery
  Disaster recovery
  Disaster recovery is the process, policies and procedures related to preparing for recovery or continuation of technology infrastructure critical to an organization after a natural or human-induced disaster. Disaster recovery is a subset of business continuity...
  
  
• Factory automation/manufacturing
  Automation
  Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization...
  
  
• GPS and location-based services

• Human resources
  Human resources
  Human resources is a term used to describe the individuals who make up the workforce of an organization, although it is also applied in labor economics to, for example, business sectors or even whole nations...
  
   (timesheets, expense reports, etc.)
• Inventory management
  Inventory
  Inventory means a list compiled for some formal purpose, such as the details of an estate going to probate, or the contents of a house let furnished. This remains the prime meaning in British English...
  
  
• Order
  Order (business)
  In business or commerce, an order is a stated intention, either spoken or written, to engage in a commercial transaction for specific products or services. From a buyer's point of view it expresses the intention to buy and is called a purchase order. From a seller's point of view it expresses the...
  
   entry and tracking
• Retail
  Retail
  Retail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be...
  
   and point of sale
  Point of sale
  Point of sale or checkout is the location where a transaction occurs...
  
  
• Training tools, including video

MAM services

• App delivery
• App security
• App updating
• User authentication

• User authorization
• Version checking
• Push services
• Reporting and tracking