The enterprise market represents a valuable corner of the mobile industry. Traditionally, enterprise customers are a very important cornerstone for mobile technology manufacturers because big business often has deeper pockets compared with consumers. And in the mobile sphere away from the BlackBerry, Apple have maintained a dominant market for some considerable time with the iPhone and iPad having a significant following. Part of the reason for this is because the Apple iPhone and iPad are a desirable product for many people and one of the issues facing enterprise customers is getting employees to use the technology. Another reason for the rapid introduction of Apple iOS is because the platform has been well supported by developers, and this means there are many applications and services designed to cater for the quite different needs of enterprise customers compared with consumer customers. In the case of Google’s Android, it is fair to write that until comparatively recently, Google has not so much considered the enterprise market but this has now changed.
We may be seeing the first signs that Google’s improved focus on the enterprise market is bearing some fruit, as Good Technology’s Mobile Index Report is showing an increase in Android’s market share of enterprise activations at the expense of Apple iOS. Over the last quarter, Apple’s share dropped 6%, dropping to 64%. Android gained by the same, moving from 26% to 32%. Windows market share remained at 4%, which is split between 3% for the desktop version running on a tablet and 1% for Windows Phone. This market share excludes Windows 10, which arrived too late for inclusion in the data: Microsoft will be hoping that the brand new operating system will improve market share. Good’s information excludes BlackBerry activations as the company does not have access to this information. Looking through the detail of the report, the main reason for the drop in iOS’ market share appears to be driven by the tablet market, where iOS has fallen from 81% to 64% over twelve months. Android moved from 15% to 25% and Windows moved from 4% to 11%.
Good’s data showed that Apple iOS and Google Android have definite differences in relative strength. iOS outpaces Android in heavily regulated industries such as the public sector, education and healthcare whereas in high technology sectors, Android has overtaken iOS. Android is also showing significant gains in the energy and manufacturing sectors. Of secure applications used on mobile devices, it is perhaps no surprise that secure browsing applications and services were the most used at 21% of all deployed applications.
Android has experienced an interesting few weeks when it comes to device security thanks in part to “Stagefright,” which has caused Google and manufacturers to first seemingly scurry to release patches and second, it has encouraged Google (and again other manufacturers) to move to a monthly security patch cycle and this could, in turn, accelerate how Android is kept secure. This should improve the likelihood that Android will be adopted by more and more enterprise customers.