Local apps developers urged to venture into enterprise apps market

Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia Datuk Johari Jailani said unlike the consumer application industry, the enterprise application market has a different growth trajectory.

"With the advent of trends like BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and telecommuting, employees are always looking to continue being productive, irrespective of whether they are in or out of the office.

"The right apps on their smart mobile device can help them achieve this aim and companies that support this through endorsing or even providing for the creation of their own specific enterprice apps, can expect to see greater growth in company productivity and operational efficiency," he said.

Speaking at the launch of MSC Malaysia Integrated Content Development Programme (ICON3) here today, Johari said start-ups and established technology companies alike are coming to realise the value of selling mobile solutions to the enterprise, after it was identified as one of the profits hotbed.

In fact, research firm Garther predicted that by 2017, some 25 percent of enterprises worldwide will have their own app store, thus moving away from their dependence on traditional consumer app store such as the Apple AppStore or GooglePlay, he said.

"Therefore, instead of building the best new mobile social network or game app, they (developers) are building apps for accountants, sales people, IT gurus and administrators.

"Looking at the development above, we believe that the time is right for Malaysian app developers to start focusing on implementing mobile enterprise apps," he said adding that the introduction of the ICON3 programme was timely.

Johari said ICON3 and Malaysian Development Coorperation's (MDeC) focus will not only create more high value professional job opportunities for Malaysians, but will also enable the local developers and industry players to carve a niche in the field through the various app segments in the enterprise market.

"This will subsequently allow app developers to produce apps that serve wider audiences and move up to the value chain, and inadvertently result in Malaysia becoming a more competitive nation that is able to leverage on its existing advantage, skills and expertise in this field," he said.

The newly-launched ICON3 will empower developers to move up the value chain to focus on applications for enterprises, while further accelerating the growth of the mobile application in Malaysia.

ICON3 will provide industrial training to nurture ICON graduates, with focus on advanced skills, including back-end server management as well as utilising cloud computing for the usage and development of apps.

The programme, which enters it's third iteration since introduction in 2009, currently has a pool of 200 developers, and ICON3 will commence with training a specialised pool of 30 to 50 developers.

Johari said the government expect the communications content and infrastructure (CCI) sector to contribute about 3.4 percent to gross national income (GNI) by 2020.

Meanwhile, MDeC Chief Executive Officer Datuk Badlisham Ghazali said initially the development of enterprise application will be focused on the needs of the local market.

From the previous two ICON programme, less then 10 applications were categorised as enterprises apps.