Five-Year MDM Forecast Looks Cloudy

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During the next five years, businesses will be turning to the cloud for mobile device management (MDM) solutions, increasingly favoring subscriptions to installed software.

Research and Markets predicts in a new forecast that “MDM applications will take overtake premise-based solutions within the next five years.” The market research company classifies MDM as products that provide “a management and administrative layer to the enterprise to provide, among other things, a secure environment for corporate data and assets.”

For many vendors, the writing is already on the wall.

In January, VMware snapped up AirWatch, the fast-growing Atlanta-based cloud-enabled MDM startup, for $1.5 billion, in what would become the EMC subsidiary’s largest buy to date. Commenting on the deal, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger said in a conference call that bringing AirWatch into the fold would accelerate his company’s growth by “delivering a complete and proven enterprise-class solution for empowering the mobile workforce.”

Even Microsoft is getting into the action. Last month, the software giant unveiled its Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS), a cloud-delivered version of the company’s MDM, mobile application management (MAM) and identity management offerings. Microsoft EMS supports Windows, Apple iOS and Google Android devices.

The demand is there, suggests Research and Markets’ data.

Currently, there are roughly 180 million enterprise bring your own devices (BYOD) in circulation globally, claims the research firm. By 2015, that figure is expected to more than double (390 million).

Taken altogether, it spells good news for cloud MDM vendors. Citing estimates from Mind Commerce, the Research and Markets said that the MDM market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.3 percent over the next five years.

Fuller coffers will follow. MDM revenues will rise at a CAGR of 40 percent by 2015, according to Mind Commerce. Most of that growth will come from the U.S, which is expected to “lead the market from a regional perspective with an estimated 68 percent of the overall market share,” said Research and Markets in a statement.

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Datamation. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.