iOS and Android are two main mobile platforms. Together these platforms has 96% of smartphone and tablet market share*. But when we look at enterprise mobility share by platform, iOS is ahead of Android. iOS takes almost 72% of market share compare to 26% of Android. Why do we see such a big gap? Why enterprises are leaned towards iOS as platforms for enterprise applications. Let’s analyze -
Device management is an important function for enterprises and enterprises seek less obtrusive ways to maintain security while ensuring acceptable user experience. Focus has shifted from device security to app-level security, data security.
1. Security: Security is one of the primary requirement for enterprises. Enterprise want to secure their data all the time while at rest or transmitting. Android and iOS popularity has already pushed out Blackberry and now enterprises have to weigh between iOS and Android.
iOS has tons of enterprise-focused security features like AES 256 bit encryption, FIPS 140-2 (iOS 8), Application code signing, Runtime process security, Data protection in Apps etc. On the other hand, until Android for Work, Android was missing on most of these features.
2. Fragmentation: The biggest problem with Android platform is in its fragmentation. There are hundreds of versions of Android available in the market. Google releases Android software and then it’s up to OEMs and carriers to push it to the end users. And each OEM custom made Android with their own enhancements, releasing Android updates takes time. On the other hand, Apple releases it’s iOS updates directly to end users and it ensures that every user has latest and greatest to supported devices available from day one.
3. VPN/SSL: iOS supports PPTP, L2TP, and IPSec VPN clients as well as integrated Cisco IPSec VPN. On the other hand, Android ( 4 and above) too provide support to PPTP, L2TP and IPSec. However, Android does not provide detailed management API support to provision VPN settings.
4. Enterprise App Support: With Apple-IBM partnership, Apple will start offering enterprise application off the shelf and it is a huge jump over Android platform.
These are some of the observation, why I think iOS keep growing into enterprises space, but Android is catching up fast. Google recently announced “Android for Work” and with “Android for Work”, Google is trying to catch up.
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