App stores have created magic on many popular mobile sites, but till now they have been restricted to consumers in the non-business world. This seems to change now as app stores might enter the enterprises soon. With these app stores coming in, finally it would help IT gain control over the software that is consumed inside their organizations.
Joe McKendrick of ZDNet had a tweetable definition of service-oriented architecture, which was: “App store for the enterprise.” According to Joe, the definition is dual faced as it could be tongue-in-cheek and at the same time it could be a serious issue too. Reason for the same was that it would lead to a well-managed, consistent and accessible registry environment in which well-vetted, governed and interoperable apps (or services) are made available for sharing across the enterprise. In fact, this is what a service-oriented architecture is suppose to do.
Tony Baer, an Ovum analyst, even recently came up with his paper detailing, wherein he had hit the spot on the enterprise app stores. The paper had him briefing about how would a switch over of the app stores (from the mobile world to the enterprise level) affect the system. Tony has in short come up with the app store model, which is inspired from the mobile world app stores, such as the Apple AppStore and Android Market. He has even addressed the enterprise software distribution pains.
Tony has stressed his information on enterprise IT departments and how it would be affected, once app stores come into play. He noes that the app stores would provide one with the ability “to gain control over the software that is consumed inside their organizations. With these approaches, IT organizations can centrally manage licensing and versions of tools that are used, so that they can reduce or eliminate unused licenses.” Yet again he stressed that the focus would be on making the IT departments “more of a service provider”.
He even noted that app store deployment would be helpful as a “just-in-time” model for IT, as it would get apps and services out to end-users:
“There’s no free lunch in all this, and it still requires management. For example, we still need to worry about dealing with security governance, managing consumption, and also making sure that you lock down, or secure the licensing issues. As I said, there’s no free lunch, but compare that to the overhead of the traditional application distribution and deployment process. …from the end user standpoint, it should be a win-win, but from the IT standpoint, it’s going to mean a number of changes. Also, this is breaking new ground with a number of the vendors. What they need to do is check on things such as licensing issues, because what you’re really talking about is a more flexible deployment policy. Long-term, it’s definitely a win-win. Short-term, there are adjustments to be made by IT and also by the software industry.”
Tony’s papers have been stressing on a smaller perspective, rather than looking at the bigger picture. However, if the IT sector is to gain out of the said model, other sectors would even benefit to some extent from the same. For example, an enterprise app store can provide an accurate accounting of who from which department is purchasing what. This approach will help justify — in hard numbers — investments in app and service development.