Antenna Software reportedly announced that the Antenna Mobility Platform now supports the Apple iPhone (News - Alert).

 

With iPhone onto AMP, Antenna offers a productivity tool for enterprise-class security, reliability and end-to-end manageability, company officials say. The AMP’s mobile application architecture allows IT professionals to develop, deploy, manage and secure applications on the iPhone, and 60 other mobile devices.

 

Antenna is a member of the Apple (News - Alert) Developer Connection program, surveyed its Global 1000 customer base in September 2008 to assess current usage and future plans for the iPhone in the workplace. Sixty-five percent respondents stated they were responsible for supporting, managing and provisioning mobile solutions at their company.

 

The report also found that 40 percent of respondents used two or more mobile devices for work, 13 percent felt that they were either supporting the iPhone or atleast planned for it, and another 64 percent felt they are in the process of evaluating their iPhone support and strategy.

 

Organizations not supporting the iPhone, barriers to overcome included total cost of ownership (38 percent), security (35 percent), device management (35 percent), application provisioning (21percent), and 85 percent of respondents expressed concern about the use of unsanctioned iPhones at workplace.

 

Here’s how AMP diagrams its mobility platform:

 

 

The iPhone will have huge implications in the enterprise market, according to Nathan Dyer, a senior analyst at Yankee Group (News - Alert).

 

“Despite the potential of prosumer pull-through in the enterprise, corporate IT remains the gatekeeper of access to enterprise back-end systems,” Dyer said. “IT must ultimately sanction and support the iPhone to transform the iPhone from a voice-centric, Internet-browsing, rogue device to a fully equipped business machine with seamless access to enterprise systems.”

 

AMP offers customers with a unified, flexible and secure environment from which IT can manage strategic mobility initiatives. It offers Enterprise Grade Security where Wireless transactions are sent on the AMP platform for remote wipe or lock of mobile applications. Another feature, Reliability -AMP allows connected and disconnected access to applications. It is a Flexible, Extensible Platform - AMP supports multiple device platforms from the same unified environment, lowering total cost of ownership by centralizing management of mobility.

 

Jim Hemmer, president and CEO, Antenna Software, said that with the iPhone, G1, Storm, Treo, and Touch, CIOs need to embrace the fact that it’s a multi-device world.

 

“With mobile and wireless technology evolving at rapid-fire pace, IT must not think in terms of mobilizing one system or supporting one device,” Hemmer said. “The transformative power of mobility is achieved with a unified platform like AMP that is built for diversity and constant change – that is what will enable real competitive advantage, service differentiation and state-of-the-art mobility solutions for years to come.”