The proliferation of mobile devices is pushing IT departments to enable mobile access to enterprise applications. Instead of attempting to rebuild applications in native mobile application development languages (ie: iOS, Android, Symbian), enterprises are increasingly enabling mobile access through the use of thin-clients such as Citrix’s Receiver and VMware‘s View client.
This method of delivering applications to mobile devices has two main advantages:
- The existing applications don’t have to be rebuilt for each mobile device (although they may need a redesign in order to optimize the user experience on a smaller screen, often without a keyboard).
- The application can be much more powerful than any mobile app because it runs on a server and only sends the image to the mobile device. For example, a stock market analysis program could crunch the numbers and simply send the results to the iPad.
Below I have embedded two leading companies that deliver this capability.
Here’s an introduction to the Citrix Receiver:
And here’s a demo of VMWare’s new iPad app:
We have been working with clients to test application’s performance when delivered to mobile devices (specifically iPads and Blackberrys) and have been impressed with the results. The performance has been great as it relies primarily on a strong network, but the user experience can be hampered if the application has a design/workflow that’s not easy to interact with on a smaller screen without a mouse and keyboard.
(image credit: ChrisDag)
