Firms Need To Prepare For Mobile Workforces, Says Citrix

By Tengku Noor Shamsiah Tengku Abdullah SINGAPORE, Dec 5 (Bernama) -- The software-defined workplace will start to come to fruition in the upcoming years ahead, as organisations accelerate their paths to a mobility-transformed business, says US-based software company Citrix. Half of the world’s population will be using mobile devices to access the Internet by 2020, a significant growth from 30 per cent last year, said Mark Micallef, the company's Asean area vice president. He noted smartphone penetration in Asia Pacific continues to see significant growth in recent years, with Singapore at 87 per cent, Malaysia at 80 per cent and Thailand at 49 per cent. As mobile becomes the gateway to the Internet for many across the world, businesses need to reinvent the way it engages its employees -– through applications (apps), he said in a statement here. "Organisations that transform traditional, physical workplaces, including resources, into one that is all-digital, virtualised, people-centric, software-defined and always available, will equip themselves with a competitive edge above the rest to drive both human and business outcomes," Micallef added. Gartner, the world's leading information technology research and advisory firm, expects that by 2016 more than 300 billion apps will be downloaded annually from mobile app stores, and by 2017, one quarter of enterprises will have enterprise app stores for managing corporate-sanctioned apps on mobile devices and PCs. -- BERNAMA