Good Technology has acquired AppCentral, and plans to use the company's products to boost its ability to manage and secure mobile enterprise applications, Good said on Tuesday.
The deal will extend the capabilities of the Good Dynamics platform with AppCentral's AppGuardian wrapping and mobile application management technology.
The deal doesn't come as a surprise to Gartner's Leif-Olof Wallin: "We are now seeing an increasing number of mobile device management vendors either buy or build mobile application management functionality," the research vice president said.
Another example of that trend is Symantec's acquisition of mobile applications management vendor Nukona, which closed in April.
The thinking behind the integration of application and device management is to improve efficiency and lower cost, and make it easier for enterprises to let employees bring their own devices to work.
The AppGuardian cross-platform application-wrapping technology embeds policy-control capabilities into any app, without requiring redevelopment work, according to AppCentral.
Enterprises can monitor and control their mobile apps on any device, even those not managed by the enterprise, it said. For example, AppGuardian allows the IT department to add application-level cut and copy protection to prevent data leakage.
Separating a user's private information from enterprise data on smartphones is also a growing trend, according to Wallin.
With the addition of AppCentral, Good Dynamics provides enterprise developers and ISVs with more choice. They can either add an application security 'wrapper' without code integration, or integrate Good Dynamics security libraries directly into their application code to implement security at an application level.
So far, Good hasn't been that successful in convincing companies to do the latter, according to Wallin.
The transaction closed on Oct. 1, and all AppCentral personnel will become full-time employees of Good and remain at AppCentral's existing office in San Francisco. The financial terms of the acquisition are not being disclosed.
