Research firm Gartner is predicting that the number of mobile customer relationship management (CRM) apps available to enterprises will increase from 200 in 2012 to more than 1,200 by 2014. However, the report also carried a warning for the mobile development industry. “Many organizations want to extend their customer service to the mobile platform market. However, the reality is that not all good applications make a good mobile application,” said Gartner’s John Jacobs.
The report also forecasts that the current trend toward cloud computing will continue, and more than half of all CRM software will be based in the cloud by 2016. Currently, about 39 percent of CRM apps are available on a software as a service (SaaS) basis. The firm predicted that SaaS leader Salesforce.com will continue to lead the CRM market.