Lenovo Launches Mobile App Store for Businesses

The platform allows IT managers to purchase, license, distribute and manage approved applications for the end user.

Computer maker Lenovo announced its first enterprise app shop€”the Lenovo Enterprise App Shop€”to bring end-to-end mobile app services to large businesses, enabling custom management, deployment and publication as well as volume pricing. The Lenovo Enterprise App Shop makes it possible for corporate users to access and use productivity apps on their Lenovo tablet or other Google Android-based tablets (version 3.1 and higher). The App Shop is available immediately worldwide (excluding China) through Lenovo sales.

The company pointed out that as more consumers use their personal devices for work, the potential for security risks and lack of IT management increases. Lenovo App Shop Manager addresses the challenge of rising IT risks in bring-your-own-device (BYOD) environments by allowing companies to create their own customized App Shops. The platform allows IT managers to purchase, license, distribute and manage approved applications for the end user. However, the App Shop Manager controls only the apps, not the device itself.

€œWith the influx of personal and mobile devices in the workplace, it€™s critical for companies to manage the proprietary and third-party applications their employees are using,€ said Mark Cohen, vice president, ecosystem and monetization at Lenovo. €œWe created an app shop designed specifically for the enterprise featuring Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) integration and cross Android platform support to facilitate IT management while giving users the apps they€™re demanding to boost productivity.€

As a software as a service (SaaS) cloud-hosted solution without infrastructure and support required, it is designed to offer a low cost of ownership. App Shop Manager offers services including a vetted catalog, where all apps on the Lenovo App Shop Catalog are malware/offensive content-free and tested to ensure they run well on Lenovo tablets.

The platform features custom management via the App Shop Manager, which allows companies to select and de-select apps from the App Shop catalog. Users also have access to the thousands of apps in the MobiHand Universal Android catalog, but only corporate approved apps are made available for purchase or download. 

Additional features include private corporate app publishing, whereby corporate customers can publish their apps to the end users via the App Shop Manager; volume purchase pricing (the App Shop Manager provides access to the MobiHand marketplace with published volume pricing discounts); and the enabling and disabling of apps through MobiHand€™s App Shop License wrapper, which allows companies to disable apps when required. In addition, IT managers can identify unapproved apps and can be alerted to users who have the apps installed for removal.

"The distribution and license management of applications for the classroom is simplified by the Lenovo Enterprise App Shop, eliminating factory resets and streamlining app installation,€ said David Gannon, associate director of academic computing and media services at Bryant University. €œWe were up and running quickly, and the App Shop Manager is very intuitive and easy to use.€