Revenues accumulated by the global mobile application market were expected
to eclipse $30 billion by the end of 2012, according to ABI Research. Despite the lofty number, we have only
scratched the surface for enterprise adoption of mobile apps. An Appcelerator survey of enterprise leaders released in
January 2013 reports that 73 percent of enterprises have built fewer than five
applications, and 39 percent have built none or just one.
While the enterprise application market is still nascent, there is clearly an understanding that mobility is critical for both employees and customers. Fifty-five percent of companies in the Appcelerator survey ranked mobility at the top or near the top of their priorities list, and 66 percent plan employee-facing mobile applications. Yet what may be less clear to your enterprise is whether the best app development path is to create a mobile app from scratch, use an app that requires customization, or purchase an app “off the shelf” from an app store. And then, how should your enterprise best distribute these applications to users once the apps are developed and available.
The app development debate is sapping up considerable organizational attention today – especially in large organizations that often have the budget and IT resources to build their own mobile business application. Whether the apps are designed for employees, customers, or both, your enterprise may be drawn to custom one-off apps for a number of perceived benefits, notably the ability to control the app environment, to ensure apps are accessed in a secure fashion, and to customize apps for specific devices and needs.
But many of these perceptions are outdated and/or flawed – and there are several key reasons enterprises must rethink internal mobile app development and the costly and resource-intensive path of building an enterprise app store.
Developing and managing a custom mobile application introduces a number of complexities to the organization. Even if a large enterprise is building out an enterprise app for a narrow, select number of platforms, it is still massively expensive. The bigger problem however is that large enterprises, just like smaller businesses, evolve and change – and so do their technology needs. As a result, a custom app can become more restrictive and less valuable for your enterprise over time unless you continue the costly process of updating the platform and adding new features, all of which typically requires developers and in the end may only support one mobile platform.
Custom-built enterprise apps can also inhibit innovation. Instead of hiring developers to support and maintain an app, innovation can be accelerated by levering a Cloud platform for apps that allows the enterprise to focus on iterating quickly and for developers to spend time thinking how to make the app environment more dynamic, rather than just trying to keep it up and running.
Once a traditional enterprise app is built, an organization must devote significant time and resources to ensure the platform or application supports and tests to new versions of operating systems and devices, while mitigating downtime and other technical/user issue.
While the enterprise application market is still nascent, there is clearly an understanding that mobility is critical for both employees and customers. Fifty-five percent of companies in the Appcelerator survey ranked mobility at the top or near the top of their priorities list, and 66 percent plan employee-facing mobile applications. Yet what may be less clear to your enterprise is whether the best app development path is to create a mobile app from scratch, use an app that requires customization, or purchase an app “off the shelf” from an app store. And then, how should your enterprise best distribute these applications to users once the apps are developed and available.
The app development debate is sapping up considerable organizational attention today – especially in large organizations that often have the budget and IT resources to build their own mobile business application. Whether the apps are designed for employees, customers, or both, your enterprise may be drawn to custom one-off apps for a number of perceived benefits, notably the ability to control the app environment, to ensure apps are accessed in a secure fashion, and to customize apps for specific devices and needs.
But many of these perceptions are outdated and/or flawed – and there are several key reasons enterprises must rethink internal mobile app development and the costly and resource-intensive path of building an enterprise app store.
Developing and managing a custom mobile application introduces a number of complexities to the organization. Even if a large enterprise is building out an enterprise app for a narrow, select number of platforms, it is still massively expensive. The bigger problem however is that large enterprises, just like smaller businesses, evolve and change – and so do their technology needs. As a result, a custom app can become more restrictive and less valuable for your enterprise over time unless you continue the costly process of updating the platform and adding new features, all of which typically requires developers and in the end may only support one mobile platform.
Custom-built enterprise apps can also inhibit innovation. Instead of hiring developers to support and maintain an app, innovation can be accelerated by levering a Cloud platform for apps that allows the enterprise to focus on iterating quickly and for developers to spend time thinking how to make the app environment more dynamic, rather than just trying to keep it up and running.
Once a traditional enterprise app is built, an organization must devote significant time and resources to ensure the platform or application supports and tests to new versions of operating systems and devices, while mitigating downtime and other technical/user issue.
