Lenovo Launches An Android App Store For The Enterprise

Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo has launched a proprietary application store for Android devices, called the “Lenovo Enterprise App Shop.” The application store is conceived to target the company’s businesses customers by offering custom deployment, publication and management of mobile applications. The app store also allows volume purchasing of the Apps. According to Lenovo, the app store will work not only with its Android-based tablets running Android 3.1 or higher, but also work with Android-based tablets from other PC makers too. One of the key features of the new app store is the “Lenovo App Shop Manager.” The tool allows company IT and admin team to build their own customized app stores which they can then fill with apps, which are approved for use by the company’s end users. The tool also allows the IT to remotely identify and disable unapproved apps, if required. The company said it modeled its proprietary app store based on the self-serve consumer app shops already available. The app store is also available as a SaaS (software-as-a-service) cloud hosted solution. This feature allows businesses to use the app store without investing on their own infrastructure and support for the app store, Lenovo provides all theses services for them. According to the company, apps which are approved for the Lenovo app store, are checked in advance for malware, offensive content and runs them on Lenovo’s tablets to ensure they function properly. Apart from the apps available in the App Shop catalog, end users will also get access to the applications listed in the MobiHand Universal Android catalog. Additional features include private corporate app publishing, wherein corporate customers can publish their apps to the end users through the App Shop Manager and volume purchase pricing for volume pricing discounts. In addition, IT managers can identify unapproved apps and alert users who have the apps installed for removal. The move by Lenovo is strategically planned to target the increasing popularity of the Apple iPad in the enterprise. According to research findings from Good Technology, the iPad 2 was adjudged the third most popular device category in terms of enterprise activations, followed closely by the original iPad. The study further commented that, Android tablet activations combined, accounted for only 6% of all tablet activations. It is believed that with the third revision of the iPad (the new iPad), those numbers will again tilt in Apple’s favor. The app store can be accessed from the following URL: http://lenovo.com/products/us/tablet/enterprise-apps