Good Technology acquires enterprise app store solutions company AppCentral
Enterprise mobility solutions firm Good Technology today announced that it has agreed to acquire San Francisco-based AppCentral, a company that enables enterprise customers to distribute, manage and secure mobile applications.
Context & Ripple Effects
Good Technology had already moved beyond enterprise push email with Good Dynamics, its iOS enterprise-app development platform, targeting developers as enterprise tablet use expanded. Its 2010 metrics also recorded strong iPad growth in the enterprise, creating demand for tools that control the full app lifecycle.
AppCentral adds the distribution, management and security layer to that developer-focused strategy. The transaction therefore connects app creation with the mechanisms enterprises use to make approved mobile software available to employees.
First-order effects
- Good Technology gains AppCentral's enterprise app-store capabilities, expanding its offering from mobile-device management and development tooling into controlled application distribution and administration.
- AppCentral's enterprise customers and technology become part of Good Technology's mobility portfolio, giving them a potential path to pair app delivery with Good's existing security and management services.
Second-order effects
- Good can package development, security and application delivery together, making a broader enterprise mobility suite the alternative to buying separate tools for each function.
- Enterprise buyers evaluating mobile-app rollouts gain a single-vendor option spanning creation and governed distribution, increasing pressure on standalone app-store suppliers to differentiate around their specialist features.
Third-order effects
- The deal points toward enterprise mobility platforms organized around control of the app lifecycle—from developer tooling to policy-managed delivery—rather than device management alone.
- If enterprises continue adopting tablets and internally deployed apps, complementary-asset acquisitions such as AppCentral become a route for mobility vendors to assemble integrated governance stacks.
The trend: Enterprise mobility vendors are broadening from securing devices to governing how business applications are built, distributed and managed.