M1, our first MobileIron user conference, was last month. One of the most popular sessions was the M1 App Contest, at which attendees presented the best internal mobile apps their companies had deployed, while the audience voted over SMS on potential business impact. “American Idol” for mobile enterprise apps, if you will. There was a ton of variety in the submissions, from mobile apps for catching criminals, to making coal mining safer, to designing trucks on the fly.

This is the tipping point, when mobile becomes a true computing platform instead of just an easier way to get email. But it is a fundamental mindset shift for both IT and user to conclude that mobile should be the primary interaction point for the most important business processes. Users believe this implicitly and will gravitate toward well-designed mobile apps. Now the more forward-thinking IT teams are also starting to view this shift as feasible in the near-term vs. only in a “who-knows-when” future. This moves the mobile apps program in a company from a hobby or interesting side-project to a strategic investment.

Another discussion at M1 was how to leverage the broad set of apps already available in the commercial app stores and markets. There is no need to reinvent what has already been built. The most common interest was in collaboration, from information and document sharing to enterprise social networking. Box (with whom MobileIron also has a promotion running currently) was a solution that came up frequently, and the corresponding discussion reinforced my view of the role of MDM in this shift toward apps.

MDM is the enabler for the cool stuff. Done right, it paves the way for companies to more rapidly adopt mobile as their core computing platform. MDM lets IT whet the enterprise “app-etite” easily and securely and sets the stage for the new world, when mobile becomes each user’s primary window into his or her enterprise.

Can’t wait to see what folks come up with for next year’s App Contest!