There is no such thing as a silver bullet when it comes to dealing with next-generation enterprise applications.
So said Matthew Cook, managing executive for application services at Business Connexion, speaking during the ITWeb-Business Connexion Application Services Executive Forum, in Johannesburg, yesterday.
According to Cook, as more and more apps find their way into the enterprise, there is a need for different enterprise solutions to solve the challenges these apps pose.
Thus, he noted, organisations must come up with innovative solutions to challenges presented by apps. "They just have to take note that there is no silver bullet. It's all about taking advantage of the existing investments that you have and [knowing] how to leverage them to provide a business solution."
He also noted that apps were being used more in enterprises as a result of the explosion of smartphones and tablets.
"The concept of bring your own device is a reality," he said. "We know that some organisations still issue you with corporate phones, and in most of these instances, most of these employees have two phones - a corporate phone and a personal one."
He also revealed that, at Business Connexion, questions it usually gets from clients are: 'how do we manage the explosion of these devices into our organisation? How do we secure them?'
"Realistically, we can't stop an employee from bringing an iPhone into the enterprise, and you can't stop them from connecting it to your mail server and any of your enterprise backend environments."
Thus, he said, instead of going the complete enterprise governance way where the devices are locked down so they are unusable within the enterprise, organisations must find a middle ground, where it makes sense to control some of the information while still allowing employees to enjoy the true benefit of the device.
Cook then suggested that organisations make use of mobile device management platforms. "These are important in monitoring the device in instances that it either gets stolen or lost."
He also noted that the smartphone penetration rate is expected to reach 80% in SA next year, as predicted by Gartner.
"Forrester forecasts that one in every three dollars spent in the tech economy will be on mobile by 2016. One billion consumers will own smartphones by 2016, with US owners owning 257 million smartphones and 126 million tablets," Cook noted.
"By 2016, 350 million employees will use smartphones, with 200 million bringing their own. Mobile spending will reach $1.3 trillion by 2016, or 35% of the technology economy, with the app market generating $56 billion by 2015," he noted.
Cook also revealed that Apple, Google and Microsoft are expected to control 91% of the US smartphone market and 98% of the tablet market by 2016. He added that businesses are expected to double their spending on mobile projects by 2015.
"So the thinking here is that the next-generation enterprise application has to be mobile-relevant. It has to be in your pocket, on your device, when you want it."
However, Cook said, besides only focusing on the next-generation enterprise apps, organisations must also pay particular attention to the last-generation, or legacy, apps, which are still relevant.
He gave an example of COBOL [Common Business-Oriented Language], one of the oldest programming languages, whose demise started in 1973.
"According to an announcement from application modernisation company Micro Focus, there are still about 220 billion lines of active COBOL code in enterprise applications today. It also claims that COBOL still powers 70% of the world's businesses," he noted.
COBOL systems are responsible for transporting 72 000 shipping containers, caring for 60 000 patients, processing 80% of point-of-sale transactions, and connecting 500 million mobile phone users, he added.
"It has been estimated that an average American relies on COBOL at least 13 times during the course of a routine day as they place phone calls, commute to and from work, and use credit cards.
"Around five billion lines of new COBOL code are added to live systems every year and there are over 200 times more transactions exposed by COBOL applications than Google searches every day," he concludes.
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