When Apple in May announced that 50 billion apps had been downloaded from its app store since it was launched in July 2008, many news stories focused on how difficult that made it for developers to get their app noticed and consequently to make a buck.

Enterprises face a different, more onerous set of problems ranging from reducing time from innovation to global delivery, to ensuring that the apps their employees are using are not going to prove a threat to the security of their corporate data and networks.

The mixed news for organizations is that the sheer volume of apps available to employees is set to accelerate. The same day Apple announced its landmark, Google revealed that 48 billion apps had been downloaded from its Play store to date, with 2.5 billion Android apps installed in the previous month alone. Apple reached the 40 billion mark as recently as January, with total downloads having doubled in 2012. While that growth promises to raise employee interactivity and productivity, it will also make it more difficult to test and manage applications and services across a growing range of devices, as well as to provide a seamless end-user experience.

Enterprises need a controlled, structured approach to mobile testing if they are going to head off critical aspects such as usability, performance and the potentially serious threats from viruses, malware and other security issues.

Yet our annual World Quality Report 2012-2013 shows that for most organizations quality assurance and mobile testing are carried out only occasionally and without a clear methodology: just 31% of respondents to this global survey said they currently tested their mobile applications. The good news: the majority of organizations expect testing budgets to rise between now and 2015; outsourcing of testing resources, in particular, is set to grow.

The primary testing challenges facing enterprises are manifold, ranging from platform fragmentation, user experience, device characteristics and performance, through to security, system integration and managing app distribution. Mobile testing, across a wide range of platforms and operating systems, will also need to be carried out on devices hosted in public and private cloud infrastructures.

More sophisticated testing methods and tools—including automation—will help. But as devices and applications proliferate, many enterprises will struggle to provide the necessary in-house resources for app development and ongoing management and testing. There is no doubt that innovative app development will be key to successful enterprise mobility strategies if companies are going to provide flexible, always-connected services to their employees and customers in future. But so too will be the ability to deliver ongoing testing and management of those apps in order to maintain a robust and secure environment.

To find out more about our Mobile App Factory and how we can help with all stages of your application lifecycle, don’t hesitate to contact me…