Brand Presence and the App Store

Recently I had the opportunity to address two groups of Corporate Developers that aretargeting iPhone and iPad as a deployment platform for their Enterprise. During the seminars both myself and a few otherSybase colleagues covered such subjects asManagement and Security of iOS devicesthrough our integration with Apple's new MDM(Mobile Device Management) protocol along with unwiring enterprise data from heterogeneous back ends to primarily iOS devices, though others are also possible. This last point is achievable through the use of a Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP), of which Sybase has the market leader in SUP or the Sybase Unwired Platform.

During and after the events I was able to have several very interesting conversations with attendees from awide variety of industries....Finance. Utilities, Manufacturing, Medical and Services, to pick a few. One low level theme that kept on reoccurring, so much so that I feel compelled to report on it, was the theme of...

Brand as one of the underlying project drivers.

It seems, is that a number of large corporate customers feel that if they are a serious Brand, and let's face it if they don't feel that way they really are not serious about winning in business, that they should have a brand presence in the App Store. In fact it is becoming more like a necessity, but Why? The answer comes in two parts…

• Firstly, some are going onto iOS app development before their competition, leading the way to drive new business and customer satisfaction, as well as customer retention and new sales.
• Secondly, some are being forced, though indirectly, due to the fact that their closest competitors are reaping the reward already and they are being forced to play catch up.