iPad Tablets Drive iOS Growth in Businesses

Apple leads but Google’s Android mobile platform is gaining ground as businesses turn toward mobile devices to boost productivity.

The success of Apple’s iPad tablets is helping the company secure a stronger footing among enterprises, according to mobile device management provider Zenprise’s Mobile Cloud Report, which uncovered trends for rival mobile platforms, Apple’s iOS 6 and Google’s open-source Android platform. At 57 percent of deployed iOS devices in Zencloud, the iPad is driving the growth of iOS overall. Apple’s iPhone represented 42 percent of deployed iOS devices. The iOS platform represented 56 percent of global device enrollment, followed by Android with 37 percent and Windows Mobile with 7 percent.

Despite continued iOS dominance overall, Android saw an uptick, with heavy usage across transportation, health care, and telecom services. The largest adopters of iOS include the education, energy, legal, real estate and insurance industries. The results suggested Android devices are viewed as better suited for field-based use cases because they are generally less expensive, allow more device control options and are applicable across more hardware platforms. As bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiatives gain traction, mobile management is extending beyond securing endpoints like smartphones and tablets to applications and content.

“The data along with conversations we’re having with our customers suggest that mobile line-of-business and secure content initiatives are highly correlated with tablets,” Zenprise CEO and President Amit Pandey. “iOS 6 will grease the skids for iPad adoption, as the new version’s enterprise features increase Apple’s business readiness.”

The report found organizations are blacklisting 39 percent and whitelisting 50 percent more apps than last quarter. Mobile app deployment remains high, with oil and gas, transportation and utilities making the highest number of apps available to users. The most commonly blacklisted apps are Angry Birds, Dropbox, Google Play and App Store, YouTube, Skype and Mail, while the most commonly whitelisted apps are Adobe Reader, Evernote, NitroDesk TouchDown, QuickOffice, Lookup and Citrix GoToMeeting. The biggest blacklisters are in the banking, entertainment and communications services industries while the biggest whitelisters are in the legal, utilities and communications services industries.

The report also found Zenprise customers continue to deploy mobile policies associated with protecting data and line-of-business initiatives, with the passcode remaining the most commonly deployed policy at 62 percent (up from 54 percent last quarter), followed by GPS, with the most dramatic increase, at 39 percent (up from 24 percent). Other policies deployed include virtual private network (VPN) at 21 percent, WiFi at 29 percent and two-factor authentication at 13 percent (down from 20 percent). However, not all policies saw an increase, as restrictions of device resources or apps (such as cameras or Bluetooth capabilities) decreased from 34 percent last quarter to 29 percent.

On Nov. 13th Zenprise launched MobileManager 8.0 and Zensuite, an integrated solution for end-to-end secure mobile productivity. Supported by the MobileManager 8.0 platform, Zensuite is designed to keep sensitive data from leaking outside of enterprise control and allows mobile users to view encrypted attachments in a secure container or a protected app. In addition, the platform offers secure mobile app access through an app-specific VPN, blocks users from removing data from a mobile app, and prevents copy, paste, printing, syncing, emailing or opening in external application, among other features.