Report: Government Mobility Spending Lags Behind Private Sector

Government agencies spend less of their total budget on making operations mobile than commercial groups do, according to new research from IDC.

Public-sector spending is about 17 percent of its budget, compared to about 25 percent at private-sector companies, according to an as-yet unpublished survey from IDC. Analyst John Jackson described some of the findings at an AT&T event Wednesday in Washington.

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Concerns about the security of apps and the data stored in those apps have been the primary barrier to adoption, Jackson explained. And for at least the past three years, concerns about integrating back-end systems into a mobile strategy have been the second largest barrier to adoption.

Jackson predicted public- and private-sector organizations will soon spend more on software services, but spending on software itself is not likely to move much, he said.

IDC previously predicted organizations would embrace mobile more than they have this year, expecting an upward inflection instead of a dip in 2015, he said. When examining the reasons agencies were reluctant to adopt mobile strategies in 2014, IDC researchers concluded many of their concerns, including security, had solutions already on the market, which would probably lead to increased adoption.