Appdome
Automating Mobile Integration

With shifting work habits, where employees are willing to work from home or through their mobile devices, enterprise mobility management (EMM) has become more essential than ever before. Business and IT leaders have come together to build a strategic and sustainable enterprise mobility strategy that transforms businesses to mobile-centric environments without compromising the customer experience. However, integrating different services to mobile applications can be an arduous and tedious task. Traditionally, an enterprise would have had to go through the time-consuming process of finding an independent service vendor (ISV) or a software development kit (SDK) for mobile integration service. With emerging technologies, however, Tom Tovar, CEO of Appdome notes, “Enterprises need to find new and innovative ways to continue their mobility journey.” Appdome leverages the power of automation to offer the first-of-its-kind “mobile integration as a service” solution. Its flagship product, the Appdome platform and its unique AppFusion technology, allows mobile developers and enterprise mobility professionals to seamlessly and quickly incorporate new functionalities to existing mobile apps without writing a single line of code.

Tovar recommends CIOs should consider three essential parameters when evaluating solutions to extend an EMM’s reach to the apps an enterprise needs. Foremost, can the toolset handle multiple use cases – including MDM and BYOD, internal to third-party apps, and more. Secondly, the software toolset should employ a dynamic integration model allowing DevOps and product management to complete integrations.

Tovar explains that the mobility journey does not end with the first implementation of EMM services to a mobile application; on the contrary, it is highly iterative and diverse which requires toolsets that have the ability to deliver and support continuous integration, something that is very complex when done manually. Hence, the right toolset should offer automated mechanisms to perform upgrades and updates every time the app, the operating system or the SDK updates. And lastly, it should utilize the simplest method of implementation. “While mobile integration is not a trivial task, it should also not take long to implement, owing to today’s competitive market,” mentions Tovar.

Appdome’s AppFusion incorporates all of these attributes and more. The cloud-based service accelerates enterprise mobility projects and allows multiple functions to be combined with a single app. To add a service to an application, all a user needs to do is go to the Appdome platform, select a specific service from the suite of services, and click to upgrade the application. The platform integrates the service into the mobile application in about 22 seconds, without needing to write a single line of code. In addition, as part of Appdome’s commitment to the mobile industry, every application that is integrated through Appdome also gets a suite of advanced app protection services— everything from code obfuscation, anti-tampering, anti-debugging, and others—free of charge.

Tovar also points out that mobility is all about enablement. Integrating services to apps always comes with a number of barriers. One of the greatest obstacles is architecting a solution amidst the diversity of mobile environments. The other challenge that both developers as well as enterprise mobility professionals face is the intense pressure to integrate additional mobility services into applications. Applications today are not standalone, single-purpose entities; rather, they have the capability to leverage several external services, such as provisioning, policy controls, secure email and secure browsing. “We, at Appdome, are attempting to solve all these predicaments through our platform by ‘templatizing’ mobile integration use cases,” says Tovar.

Presently, Appdome offers a range of mobility and security services for the EMM market. Tovar also shares that Appdome will soon be launching a category of mobile identity services that will provide verification and controls for frauds and anti-bots, along with public key infrastructure, and biometric and behavioral scanning. “We are not stopping there, we are also planning to penetrate into areas such as analytics, payments, and advertising,” ends Tovar.