The mobile-app-industry report-mae_11-2013

The Mobile App Experts

November 2013

The Mobile App Industry Report
Trends, Predictions, Observations and
Best Practices for Project Success.
The Mobile App Experts provides market and technology intelligence about the
Mobile App Industry. Our business analysts research, interview and report on a
host of topics related to mobile app development, mobile strategy, approaches to
mobile, trending use cases, return on investment, in-house vs. outsourcing -establishing a selection criteria for developers and industry best practices.

Sourcing the right developer.
Don’t judge a book by its cover!
By Shaun Meany, Senior Business Analyst, The Mobile App Experts

With more than 1,000 mobile application developers to choose from it can be a
daunting task to find the perfect development partner to create your mobile app.
Searching Google or any other Internet search engine you will find so many
developers that you will quickly realize it is not really a problem of finding a
mobile developer, but rather finding one that has the experience and skills to
address your exact requirements. We have talked to scores of clients who have
gone through the pain staking process of researching developers and it is no
surprise as to what we have learned. “Most developers are selected based on the
information they share on their web sites and their claims relating to industry
expertise”.
What really surprised us was the number of mobile app developers who
portrayed great development capabilities, incredible big name brand references
and exceptional industry expertise. But upon closer inspection and thorough
investigation we discovered that many of these developers overstated their
capabilities and that the claims stated on their web sites were completely
fraudulent. Often we found references to companies who had no idea who these
developers were and why theyThis being promoted on these developer’s repeatedly.
were is an area that can be used
websites. “Caveat emptor!”

Index
Vendor Don’t judge a book
Sourcing by its cover!
Risk What you don’t know
about making a mobile
app can cost you big in
the long run.
Enterprise How to reduce complexity
Apps of B2B and B2E Mobile
Business Application
Development.
Best Best practices for mobile
Practices development.
Trends Leading factors when
weighing your mobile
business application
development options.

Learn how we can help match you with the best mobile
development vendor for your project.
203.858.5455 l info@themobileappexperts.com l www.themobileappexperts.com


November 2013

What you don’t know about mobile app
development can cost you big.
By Olivier Leibowitz, President, The Mobile App Experts

The mobile channel is an extremely exciting area of
expansion across numerous industries today. From iPhones
and Android phones... to iPads and tablet computers,
today's new mobile devices and applications are turning
businesses on their heads in every industry through both
internal business value and external value with customer
interactions.

Below are some of the leading categories that The Mobile App
Experts applies when assisting companies to source and properly
evaluate prospective mobile development mobile vendors.

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If you are in charge of setting your company's mobile
strategy, like many others, you're probably searching for
some expert advice on how to manage the expanding
variety of mobile applications; selecting the right platform
for the job; developing the most methodological business
strategy based your unique needs; and, how to go about
sourcing and ultimately selecting the most qualified vendor
to support your requirements. Like you, many companies
are grappling with how to handle that same challenge.
Regardless of what business you're in, vendors play a key
role in the success of your business. And in an environment
where organizations now have more choices available to
them and with third party services appearing seemingly easy
to use and quick to deploy, an organization’s liability and
risk landscape can increase rapidly. And with mobility still
in the early stages of growth, the associated risks with
vendor selection are even greater. “The choices are vast
and the decisions can be daunting -- and your project's
success relies heavily on proper third party vendor
identification. Collectively, your decision must take into
account business and customers.”

Technology & Capability
Experience: Vertical and Horizontal
Administrative Governance, Legal & Security
Creativity & Development Methodology
Project Management & Communications
Viability & Resources
Adaptability & Maintenance Support
Clear contractual expectations (the "SLA"). In addition
to clearly outlining the scope of work and contracted
deliverables, the Service Level Agreement must include
provisions based on identified risks. These include:
project governance, roles and responsibilities, billing
process, contract terms and remediation of unacceptable
risks, legal considerations, IT policy compliance,
among a number of other risk-management categories.

In Summary... One thing is for sure, as companies evaluate the
space they all agree that there is no simple solution specifically
geared toward solving the challenges of presenting mobile
content and functionality specific to their vision and easily
finding development vendors that are most qualified for the
project. “Vendors provide value in the expertise and
experience they offer -- however, it is critical that any
company seeking to develop a mobile application or solution
maintain active oversight throughout the vendor evaluation
and project development phases.”
Risk can be costly! Avoid it at all cost.
By leveraging the expertise of The Mobile App Experts, we can
help you significantly streamline this daunting process. Not only
will we assist you in flushing out a smart mobile strategy and
documenting the intended scope-of-work, we’ll help you
confidently identify and select the best vendors for your project.

Outsource Risk Management
When you begin to evaluate vendors, it is important to
address some key questions not only with the vendors, but
also within your own organization. Managing risk within
an organization can be applied to many different areas and
functions. However, when it comes to developing and
implementing a successful mobile app strategy, there a
numerous layers of due diligence that must be correctly
addressed in support of building a mutually strong
relationship with your vendors that will strengthen your
company's overall performance in the marketplace. Ignoring
these sound vendor management principles will result in a
dysfunctional relationship that will have the potential to
negatively impact your business.

Give us a call and we'll show you how to get your
project off on the right foot to mobile success.

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© Copyright 2013. The Mobile App Experts. A service of VCBI LLC. All rights reserved.


November 2013

How to Reduce Complexity of
B2B and B2E Mobile Business
Application Development
Rapid mobile adoption can result in increased productivity and reduced
overhead, but it’s necessary for enterprises to plan ahead to avoid the
challenges of finding the best developer for the project, having a clear
strategy for integrating mobile business applications into their existing infrastructure.
Here are some leading factors to consider:
Platform requirements
Mobile business application platforms need to communications between client and server, client-side interface, data and
business logic layers of an application, scalability, operational reliability and transactional integrity. In addition, the
likelihood of carrier-class transaction volume requirements means the platform must not be simply scalable but highly
scalable to many proven levels of transactions.
Strategy requirements
Mobile enterprise application strategies need to consider that differences in business processes may be needed to achieve the
highest degree of integration, security and transactional integrity. Part of that strategy may involve cloud-based servers and
even software as a service (SAAS)-style deployment and consumption of business applications.
Integration requirements
Standard approaches to integration are complicated when mobile devices are used instead of traditional, fixed-location
clients. Asynchronous integration is no longer an exception to a standard business process; it becomes one of the primary
business scenarios. As such, an integration platform needs to have robust asynchronous capabilities for what are known as
"long-running processes" or processes that may take hours, days or even weeks to be completed-as opposed to synchronous
processes such as those that might be conducted from within a network.
Combination of technology and process
Mobile application developers are faced with the "chicken or the egg" dilemma: Should they first choose a mobile business
application platform and then detail their business requirements according to what's possible with that platform? Or should
they map out the business requirements first and then choose a mobile platform that can best support those needs? A
combination of both approaches is recommended. An initial, high-level requirements analysis is essential in pursuing an
effective mobile strategy. But the specifics of what you can accomplish will be important to the details of your business
processes.
Table 1: Worldwide Devices Shipments by Segment
Device Type
2012
PC (Desk-Based and Notebook)
341,263
Ultramobile
9,822
Tablet
116,113
Mobile Phone
1,746,176
Total
2,213,373

2013
315,229
23,592
197,202
1,875,774
2,411,796

(Thousands of Units)
2014
2017
302,315
271,612
38,687
96,350
265,731
467,951
1,949,722
2,128,871
2,556,455
2,964,783
Sources: eWeek.com and Gartner (April 2013)

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November 2013

Best practices for mobile development
By Shaun Meany, Senior Business Analyst, The Mobile App Experts

Smartphones and tablets are disrupting traditional computing. According to Gartner (see Table 1 on page 3) The
proliferation of lower-priced tablets and their growing capability is accelerating the shift from PCs to tablets. Mobile
devices and the new ultramobile devices are now so popular that many users no longer buy desktop or laptop computers.
In this article you’ll learn about design practices for building mobile apps. These practices will help you get the results you
seek and also satisfy your customers.
Create a Mobile Strategy: Make sure that your mobile strategy is in line with your overall corporate strategy. Mobile
strategies should not stray from your key company goals and objectives. Mobile initiatives need to be budgeted, assessed
for the benefits verses costs (ROI) and should have reasonable and realistic timelines for development and
implementation.
C

Consider Your Audience: Before you take any time to build an app, consider your audience. Will the app be used to
promote your brand to customers, improve productivity of your employees? What do you hope to achieve? How do you
envision your audience using your app? These are important questions to consider up-front.

2.

Investigate what your competition is doing and also research the App Stores: If your competition has already
introduced an app for its customers, vendors or employees find out what features they introduced in the app. Install the
app yourself and see how you like the design and user experience. Do you notice any features that you would want in
your app? Look also at other apps that have great design interfaces. What makes these features so appealing? Consider
the buttons and the colors. Notice how many features are provided in the app. Are there too many functions making the
app confusing and possibly an obstacle for user acceptance?

3.

Get End Users involved in the Design and Specification Process: It is very important that you get buy-in when
developing a mobile application. If you fail to get buy-in you might create an app that on the surface is fantastic but if the
users don’t embrace the app you might you spent a lot of money for no return on investment. To avoid this problem,
involve potential end users in the design process and use their feedback to make changes as necessary.

C

Create a Storyboard: The storyboard is one of the most important aspects of the design process. This is where you lay out
the complete functionality of your app on paper. If there are problems, you can resolve them at this stage. The storyboard
allows you to plan out all aspects of the design, including future components, such as plug-ins.
How will the app be used and where will it be used: Answering these questions will help determine the technological
approach for the app. There are basically three approaches to mobile apps.


Native Apps are built specifically to the needs of the various operating systems such as Apple's iOS or Android.
The key advantages of Native apps are: speed, performance and the user graphical interface is optimized to work
without the need of an Internet connection. Disadvantages to native apps are: app must be built for each specific
mobile platform (i.e. Apple, Android and Windows), the development time is longer and usually the costs are
higher than other approaches.

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November 2013

Best practices for mobile development (cont’d)


Mobile Web Apps are websites built using HTML5 that are specifically designed for smaller screens. Key
advantages to Mobile Web Apps: no need to distribute using iTunes or Google Play, works on any smart mobile
device (works right in the mobile device's browser). Usually mobile web apps are the lowest cost approaches.
There are two major drawbacks to mobile web apps: (1) slower performance and (2) an Internet connection is
required.



Hybrid Apps install like native apps, but use a native app shell or wrapper, the actual app works more like a
Mobile Web App as it requires a website feed. The major advantages of Hybrid Apps are: the app caches content
on the device so it works offline to some degree, easier to deploy when a cross platform is required, lower cost
than native. Disadvantages: does not run as smoothly as native apps, offline performance can be inconsistent,
requires to be ported to each mobile operating system.

Make the App Easy to Understand: The app should be easy to understand with descriptions to accompany graphics (if
necessary) and additional instructions. One design flaw is relying too much on images to tell the tale. That’s a major error
because users might not be able to figure out the purpose of your app if you use a lot of graphics. Clear instructions are
necessary.
Avoid Overuse of Graphics and Animations: Both graphics and animations can add a nice “Wow” factor to your app
but there’s a major downside – slow loading times which translate into a poor user experience. Whenever possible, either
avoid the use of bitmaps or animations or limit their use to only essential features. And if you do use graphics, use vector
graphics whenever possible. The files sizes from these are much smaller, so they’ll load faster.
Consider the Sizes of Buttons and Icons: When working with a mobile interface, you have a limited amount of space and
some designers add too many buttons/icons. Another consideration is the size of the human fingertip. If the buttons/icons
are too small, users could make errors with selecting the wrong one. Likewise, if there’s not enough space between the
buttons/icons, that can cause trouble as well. If in doubt, test your layouts and get feedback.
Create a Core Application: This means taking the most important features and building those into a core application
experience. Building plug-ins that can be purchased as necessary by the user can create additional functionality. This
avoids overloading the core part of the app with too many features. Create a Consistent Workflow: This translates into
making sure the user experience remains the same on all platforms. If you change that for each device, you’ll confuse and
annoy your users.
Create a Consistent Workflow: This translates into making sure the user experience remains the same on all platforms. If
you change that for each device, you’ll confuse and annoy your users.
Test the Design: With any design, this is the most important aspect. If you’ve been following the strategies listed in this
article you’ll be testing your app every step of the way. Still, it’s important to test the finished product and not only once
but several times with different users. If there are problems, fix them, then test the result again.

In summary… “Creating a mobile app requires a lot of strategic thinking and while it’s very important to
consider the design and use cases, it’s equally important to do some research first. Consider the value that
The Mobile App Experts can offer in this area of research.”

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Don’t risk selecting the wrong
mobile development vendor for
your mobile program — it can
be a very costly mistake!


The success of your mobile app program depends on a sound
strategy and selecting the best mobile development company for
the job. If you are considering to develop a mobile app, or already
involved in the strategic planning of one, make it a great success
by leveraging the expertise and marketplace intelligence that The
Mobile App Experts offers you.





We make it easy to source, properly assess and ultimately
hire the best mobile developers based on your exact
requirements.
We help companies of different sizes, in a number of
industries, develop smart, mobile application strategies that
are success-focused.
We have compiled the single largest database of
exceptional mobile development companies from around
the world.
We help eliminate the selection guess work -- fear,
uncertainty and doubt.

Spring 2016

“The success of your mobile
app project depends on a
sound strategy and selecting
the best development
company for the job.”

Marketplace intelligence that drives mobile program success.

Learn how we can help match you with the best
mobile development vendor for your project.
Contact info:
p. 203.858.5455
e. info@themobileappexperts.com
w. www.themobileappexperts.com
60 Katona Drive, Suite 10, Fairfield, CT 06854 USA

5

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