Touching mobile apps the Artisan way delivers real-time UI/UX changes without coding

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1 Touching mobile apps the Artisan way delivers real-time UI/UX changes without coding Analyst: Vishal Jain 16 Jul, 2013 Artisan Mobile has raised $5.5m in series A financing, led by existing investor FirstMark Capital. The mobile-app development firm, formerly known as apprenaissance, announced general availability of its front-end app-optimization platform in February. Launched in private beta in the third quarter of last year, Artisan Optimize saw participation from more than 100 organizations, 12 of which the company claims were Fortune 100. Over the course of the year, Artisan plans to launch additional app-optimization products such as Artisan Create, Artisan Analyze and Artisan Personalize. As brands invest heavily in apps for marketing, they have expectations of maximizing returns similar to their online campaigns. However, there's a fundamental difference, because it's difficult to do dynamic updates or changes within native apps once they've been launched or installed by users. Dynamic app updates have been around, but the need to marry that with performance is creating a new set of requirements. A recent startup, Pixate, announced $3.8m in funding to push its dynamic UI/UX update product for native ios apps into the market. The 451 Take The mobile-app user behaves unlike the desktop Web user; the low threshold for performance has a direct bearing on brand loyalty. Hence, we see the growth of performance management, content management and real-time user monitoring in mobile apps. However, the publishing and monitoring cycle remains disconnected and in the hands of different stakeholders. Artisan has connected the dots and created a feedback loop that should quicken the optimization Copyright The 451 Group 1

2 process for apps. It's the right step for a market that needs platforms that remain in tune with the short and iterative development and deployment cycles required of mobile apps. While mobile publishing may be similar to Web publishing, Artisan has done well to adopt Web testing and optimization practices for mobile apps. As is the case with consumer and brand apps, a need to understand app performance and usage behavior is emerging for enterprise apps. In the past, enterprises could have discounted such a need, but they can no longer afford to ignore the issue, since a lot of apps are now concerned with business tasks, and downtime or poor performance can have an impact on revenue. Context Artisan Mobile is a two-year-old startup focused on optimizing the user experience through app-performance management. Earlier known as apprenaissance, the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based company initially did custom app development before it launched a platform for app optimization. After hiring Bob Moul, who was earlier at the helm of Boomi leading up to its sale to Dell, the company started seriously scouting for a product-based strategy in mobile apps. That led to the acquisition of UX Flip, which formed the basis of the current Artisan Optimize platform for mobile-experience management. Artisan uses a combination of XML definitions and analytics to enable organizations to dynamically update the app features and user interface. Thus, it allows continuous testing and deployment without having to resubmit to app stores. This approach also does away with programmer and designer involvement, and lets business users adapt the front end and features within an app while it is deployed. Its private beta in September 2012 saw participation from 60 organizations, and exceeded 100 by the time the product entered public beta three months later. Large brands such as AOL, Disney and Coke signed up, as well as smaller app developers such as A View From My Seat. With the current round of $5.5m, Artisan's total funding stands at $8.5m, led by FirstMark Capital. The company has 22 employees. Products The flagship product is Mobile Experience Management (MEM) platform, of which Artisan Optimize is the first of the modules that allows A/B or multivariate testing and dynamic UI changes for native ios apps. When fully launched, MEM is expected to be an integrated development and deployment platform that combines the design, development, analytics and performance management of ios, Android and HTML5 apps. Artisan claims it is particularly suitable for marketers, designers and Copyright The 451 Group 2

3 product managers because it lets them test new features, collect results, and analyze and push new changes on the front end without having to code, compile or resubmit the app to the app store. Artisan Optimize is a cloud-based platform that exposes app design, build and analytics through a browser-based interface. Before the platform can be used, it requires local installation of a SDK that can automatically find the Xcode project and AppDelegate. From here onward, the UI of the app can be configured through the browser-based interface. Attributes related to UI elements such as text, images and their positioning can be changed. The update is then directly pushed to users through the Optimize platform. It does that by keeping a record of changes and sending only the updated elements to be cached within the app. Data related to app usage, right down to individual use of the app, such as every page view and events such as checkout or cart ticks, are tracked and reported to aid A/B testing. Priced in three tiers, it is based on a combination of the number of apps, monthly active users and monthly tests. It can range from $1,000 per month for one app, 25,000 monthly users, to $10,000 per month for 25 apps and five million monthly active users. Strategy It is has been well received by large brands, but the company is also targeting the midmarket and above through partnerships with agencies and boutique app-development shops. Although started with point products, it hopes to eventually build a self-service marketing-optimization platform for native apps. The vision is similar to the evolution of Web-marketing companies, and Artisan sees a need resonating for lowering the technical complexity as brand dollars flow toward mobile apps. Hence, it wants to strike a chord through the familiarity of Web marketing features, and bring those into the area of mobile marketing. Aiding Artisan's pitch is the complexity of developing and updating apps, involving a cumbersome app-store approval and submission process. Artisan has zeroed in on lifecycle management of the front end as a way to alleviate the time spent on the entire development and management of apps. It expects to launch a series of products for designing apps and their analytics and performance management. Competition In mobile-app publishing, front-end optimization and performance management are emerging as the key to maintaining user satisfaction once the app has been published. However, both these elements are under separate ownership within the enterprise. While front-end experience and Copyright The 451 Group 3

4 optimization is the forte of designers and developers, performance management and analytics is mostly a business element, monitored by business users. Of the brand-focused vendors trying to bring together both the publishing and performance management elements, Adobe stands out with its integration of content management, analytics and A/B testing within Adobe Experience Manager. At the other end of the mobile-app spectrum are the app management vendors that have stumbled upon this opportunity by virtue of their app store distribution capabilities. App47 lets enterprises distribute multiple version of an app via a private app store, and then helps them optimize the app prior to general availability, using a set of policies. IBM and Appcelerator also integrate performance management with development within their platforms; however, it requires an app build that is based on their development platforms. Management of mobile-app performance remains a strong need within the enterprise, and it's a market that has seen the strongest addition of vendors in the past one year. New Relic, Crittercism, Keynote Systems, IBM, Perfecto Mobile and Compuware are some of the established vendors that are vying for a share of the post-deployment performance management (real-user monitoring) market alongside growing competition from enterprise mobility management vendors. SWOT Analysis Strengths Weaknesses Clear positioning around brands and their mobile requirements has helped Artisan establish an early lead in the rapidly evolving and converging space of mobile-app optimization. The product does a good job of marrying performance management and optimization within a single tooling interface. Opportunities Threats Mobile-app optimization remains a solid opportunity, and Artisan can grow with the lifecycle of brand apps. There is also an opportunity in the enterprise segment because enterprises are investing into business- and employee-focused apps. The platform will need to quickly evolve per Artisan's stated vision in order to maintain its lead in the market. It would be immensely beneficial if Artisan extended the platform to post-deployment performance management scenarios such as real-user monitoring. Besides the app-development platforms, enterprise mobility management and performance management vendors should remain a cause of concern for Artisan. These firms are quickly adding additional pieces of management components that extend sideways beyond the remit of their core products. Copyright The 451 Group 4

5 Reproduced by permission of The 451 Group; This report was originally published within 451 Research Äôs Market Insight Service. For additional information on 451 Research or to apply for trial access, go to: Copyright The 451 Group 5