Good Technology eyes developers, launches Good Dynamics
Summary: Good Technology rolls out a mobile software development platform for Apple's iOS to enable more enterprise-grade tablet apps. — Good Technology, best known for its enterprise push email software, is getting into the software development business.
Context & Ripple Effects
Good Technology has spent four years riding the iPhone into the enterprise: Gartner called the enterprise iPhone back in September 2007, CNET catalogued early enterprise apps a year later, and Good's own Q4 2010 device report showed the iPad surging inside companies. By mid-2011 the iPad was trouncing Android in enterprise adoption, making secure tablet apps the bottleneck rather than the hardware.
With Good Dynamics, the company is repositioning from selling its own push-email app to selling the development layer other developers build on — a bet that whoever provides the enterprise-grade app framework for iOS captures value beyond any single application.
First-order effects
- iOS developers gain a sanctioned path to ship enterprise-grade tablet apps without building their own security and management plumbing, with Good Technology as the gatekeeper of that layer.
- Good Technology's revenue model shifts from per-seat push-email licenses to platform economics, putting it in competition with the app vendors it used to sit alongside.
Second-order effects
- Apple benefits indirectly: every enterprise-grade iOS app built on Good Dynamics deepens the iPad's advantage over Android in corporate deployments, where Good's own data already showed Apple dominant.
- Enterprise mobility vendors that sell security and management around iOS face pressure to open their tooling to third-party developers or risk being disintermediated by Good's platform.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, enterprise mobile software stratifies into a middleware tier — companies like Good productizing security and governance on top of consumer operating systems they don't control, with Apple setting the terms underneath.
The trend: Enterprise mobility is consolidating around platform layers built atop iOS, as vendors pivot from single apps to developer ecosystems for the tablet-first workplace.