Employees have been downloading apps from consumer app stores for years to help complete work-related tasks. Increasingly, though, enterprises are making apps available to workers via internal app stores, which makes deploying applications easier for IT and enables businesses to supply company approved apps to gain more security and control. Understanding the characteristics of an internal app store, as well potential benefits and drawbacks, is the first step in knowing whether you’ll want to set up your own.
Know What You’re Getting Into
“Exclusive” is one way to think of an enterprise app store. Mike Battista, a research analyst at Info-Tech Research Group, says many companies develop their own apps that they don’t “want the public having access to (and the public probably wouldn’t give a hoot about), and an internal app store is a way to deliver these apps to employees.”