Buyer’s Guide for Sustainable Mobile Application Development
The mobile application market is so hot that suppliers, corporations and users are confronted with a plethora of choice. We have compiled some basic tips to help you make an informed decision in selecting a trusted partner for your mobile application portfolio.
Today’s desktop application developers have it easy. Essentially they have three OS platforms to choose from: Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. And even then, there are often ways to make software written for one platform run on the others. In the early days of PC software development, developers were forced to choose between Apple, Atari, Commodore, IBM, and other proprietary hardware platforms, which had very little commonality. But even the good old days pale in comparison to the situation mobile application developers face today.
Even if we limit the choices to smartphone platforms alone, clients still need to choose between Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Symbian, Windows Phone, Bada, Meego, J2ME – and which one is next? And each platform is incompatible with the others.
Obviously, reaching the broadest possible audience is top priority for both mobile application marketers and technologists. But there are other important factors that are often over looked. Here are a few key questions to consider when choosing a partner for your mobile application support:
- What are your key considerations for your mobile application business case?
- Mobile apps serve different business opportunities and challenges: strategic revenue opportunity, brand loyalty, cost reduction/savings, optimalisation/efficiency
- Are you currently exploring a mobile app greenfield project or have you already released earlier versions of mobile apps?
- How creative should the mobile app concept be? Is it a branded gadget or will it serve pure easy-to-use functionality?
- Are you targeting the B2C or B2B market? For a B2B, are you unlocking existing applications for employees or does the app serve partner or customer enterprises?
- What is your intended release frequency? Are you targeting a one-off application, such as for an event, or are you targeting a sustainable future-proof mobile app?
- How many mobile apps are you planning to develop and maintain in the coming years? Is this an ad hoc project or are you considering a complete portfolio of mobile applications?
- How rich do you want your planned mobile app experience to be? Will it contain interactivity, video, transactions, maps or will it contain a more straightforward content feed?
- What kind of integration is needed to make the application work? Will it require bespoke system, CMS, external feed, transaction and payment, ad server or enterprise packaged app integration, for example used in customer care, sales force, or field services?
- What is the security and privacy compliance level of the mobile application? Will it use privacy-sensitive data that needs to be protected or is it open information?
- What is the brand risk related to your mobile application?
- What kind of audience are you targeting with your mobile application? Do you want to reach a mass market audience or are you targeting a niche?
- Do you think you can reach your audience with a single mobile device OS or do you require a multi-device approach in order to reach your business objectives. How far do you want to stretch to accomplish maximum reach, potentially considering even mobile web?
- If you are considering a multi-device approach, which technological direction would you prefer and what are your considerations in choosing one or the other? The main categories for mobile app development we see today are:
- Silo development approach using Service Development Kits (Apple, Android, QT, etc…)
- Magic box approach, with a strong emphasis on quick development
- Mobile Application Lifecycle Platform, with a focus on quality user experience and sustainability with lower total-cost-of-ownership.
- Which app stores are you considering for distribution of the mobile application? Do you want to create you own ‘app store’ as well?
- What is your preferred mobile app sourcing strategy? Do you prefer an outsourced (SaaS) model, an in-sourced model, using a third party platform on which you develop and maintain, or would you consider a complete self service model?
Contact us to score yourself on our mobile app maturity index.