IoT Report Series Best Practices for IoT Developer Programs VisionMobile 2016 All rights reserved Report sample Get in touch or purchase the full

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2 About VisionMobile VisionMobile TM is the leading research company in the apps economy and mobile business models. Our research helps clients track developer trends through the largest, most global developer surveys. Developer Economics is our semi-annual industry research series, tracking app developer trends, attitudes, experiences and monetization by region. Our mantra: distilling market noise into market sense. VisionMobile Ltd. 90 Long Acre, Covent Garden, London WC2E 9RZ Follow us on Term of re-use of the report Content 10 recommendations for better IoT developer programs Part 1 - Why have a developer program? Part 2 - What IoT developers need Conclusion Methodology Also by VisionMobile Find out more at visionmobile.com/reports 1. License Grant Single User. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, VisionMobile hereby grants you, the named user, a non-exclusive, non- transferable license to the Report. You may not distribute the Report within your organisation, publicly, or to any other organisation or third party, or to any or publicly accessible internet resource (such as Dropbox or Slideshare). Additionally, this License does not provide any right to you to sub-license the Report to other parties. 2. License Grant Team User. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, VisionMobile hereby grants you, a maximum of 5 named users, a non-exclusive, nontransferable license to the Report. You may not distribute the Report within your organisation, publicly, or to any other organisation or third party, or to any or publicly accessible internet resource (such as Dropbox or Slideshare). Additionally, this License does not provide any right to you to sub-license the Report to other parties. 3. License Grant Enterprise. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, VisionMobile hereby grants you an organisational non-exclusive, non-transferable license to distribute the report within your organisation and to any fully owned Affiliate organisations. You may not distribute the Report publicly, or to any other organisation or third party, or to any or publicly accessible internet resource (such as Dropbox or Slideshare). Additionally, this License does not provide any right to you to sub-license the Report to other parties. 4. Representations, Warranties and Disclaimer VisionMobile believes the statements contained in this publication to be based upon information that we consider reliable, but we do not represent that it is accurate or complete and it should not be relied upon as such. Opinions expressed are current opinions as of the date appearing on this publication only and the information, including the opinions contained herein, are subject to change without notice. Use of this publication by any third party for whatever purpose should not and does not absolve such third party from using due diligence in verifying the publication s contents. VisionMobile disclaims all implied warranties, including, without limitation, warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. 5. Limitation on Liability. IoT Wearables Landscape 2015 The Smart Home Landscape 2015 Developer Programs Benchmarking 2015 Databoard VisionMobile, its affiliates and representatives shall have no liability for any direct, incidental, special, or consequential damages or lost profits, if any, suffered by any third party as a result of decisions made, or not made, or actions taken, or not taken, based on this publication. 6. Termination. Want access to all Premium reports? Get an annual subscription! This License and the rights IoT granted Report hereunder Series will terminate Best Practices automatically for upon IoT any Developer breach by you Programs of the terms of this VisionMobile License All rights reserved Report sample 2 Copyright VisionMobile v.1.0 Report Sample

3 ABOUT THE REPORT 9 TH EDITION DEVELOPER ECONOMICS 3,150+ IOT DEVELOPERS SURVEYED 140+ COUNTRIES COVERED 5M+ IOT DEVELOPERS IN THE WORLD TODAY Get the full report for more data and insights or contact VisionMobile for more details. Key questions that this report answers: What matters more to IoT developers: simplicity, features, reliability, or commercial opportunity? Is great documentation just an implicit expectation towards developer support programs, or is it a key differentiator? How have the best IoT developer programs approached the need for integration tools? What do IoT developers value more: great support from vendors, or stellar community support from peers? How can your program leverage Q&A sites like StackOverflow, a key information source for IoT developers? Live events are often one of the biggest budget-eaters in a developer program. But are they effective? Colleges and universities don t deliver enough developers, nor the breadth of skills needed in the market. How can your training program best be structured to help to fill that education gap? Which types of tools, APIs and platforms should go all-in on creating commercial opportunities for their developer base, and which shouldn t bother? 3

4 METHODOLOGY For this report we surveyed 3,150+ IoT developers from 140+ countries in our Q Developer Economics survey. The data from this survey, the largest research to date on IoT developers, give us a unique perspective at how the Internet of Things developer ecosystem is evolving. The online survey was translated in 7 languages (Chinese, French, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish) and promoted by more than 70 leading community and media partners within the app-development and IoT industry. We corrected for regional bias and segment distribution bias across our outreach channels. For more information about our methodology, please get in touch. 4

5 FULL REPORT TABLE OF CONTENTS About the authors 3 About this report 5 10 recommendations for better IoT developer programs 6 Part 1 - Why have a developer program? 9 Five ways developers can extend your business model 10 What is a developer program? 12 Developers are important decision makers 13 Fierce competition for developer attention 15 Part 2 - What IoT developers need 17 First things first: make developers life easy 17 Docs and sample code 20 IDE integration 21 Tap into the power of community 23 Peer-to-peer support 23 Why do developers prefer peer-to-peer support channels? 24 Live events 25 Paid support 27 How do developers get educated in your technology? 27 Does money matter? 30 Conclusion 34 Methodology 35 5

6 LIST OF GRAPHS & FIGURES 1. The 5 ways developers can extend your business model 2. Key components of a developer program 3. Developer satisfaction ratings of mobile, smart home, and industrial IoT developer programs compared to their popularity 4. Developer involvement across areas (IoT, mobile, cloud), IoT verticals, and developer programs 5. The most important features of developer programs according to IoT developers 6. The most important sources of information for to IoT developers 7. The most important criteria for selection IoT platforms 8. Expectations towards documentation and sample code by experience and region 9. Expectations towards IDE integration by age and experience 10. Popularity of open source communities and Q&A sites by experience 11. Popularity of 4 types of events by company size 12. Popularity of 4 types of events by IoT developer segment and project type 13. Expectations towards training by age and experience 14. Educational profile of IoT developers by region 15. Expectations towards revenue and marketing opportunities by IoT developer segment 6

7 ABOUT THE AUTHORS Stijn Schuermans Senior Business Analyst Christina Voskoglou Director of Research and Operations Michael Vakulenko Strategy Director Stijn is the lead Internet of Things researcher in the VisionMobile team since He has authored over 20 reports and research notes on mobile and the Internet of Things. He focuses on understanding how technology becomes valuecreating innovation, how business models affect market dynamics, and the consequences of this for corporate strategy. Stijn holds an engineering master degree and an MBA. He has over 10 years experience as an engineer, product manager, strategist and business analyst. You can reach Stijn Christina leads the analyst team and oversees all VisionMobile data projects from methodology to analysis and insights generation. She is also behind VisionMobile s developer segmentation research, as well as the Developer Economics reports and DataBoard subscription services. Christina has more than 16 years of experience in statistical consulting, BI design and business forecasting. She holds an MSc in Statistics from the London School of Economics (LSE) and a BSc in Economics & Statistics from the University of Bath. You can reach Christina at: Michael has over 18 years experience in mobile and telecom starting from working on first experimental 3G systems in Qualcomm. Later on Michael was part of several startups developing products in the areas of wireless, enterprise networking and mobile apps. At VisionMobile Michael works at the cross section of business models, economics and technology where he leads strategy practice for software-centric business models in mobile, Internet of Things and Connected Car. You can reach Michael at: 7

8 INTRODUCTION Software developers and the tools, APIs, and platforms that support them play a critical role in the nascent Internet of Things industry. Access to developers is becoming a competitive advantage in every IoT vertical, from the smart home to connected cars. The Best Practices for IoT Developer Programs report explores what IoT developers value most in a developer support program. This report on developer programs is part of our Developer Economics series - the leading research program on software developers and the app economy, tracking developer experiences across platforms, revenues, apps, languages, tools, APIs, segments and regions. In the first part of the report, we clarify what a developer program entails, and why providing excellent support for developers is so crucial in this era of digital revolution. We show how Internet of Things developers can be an important ingredient in your business model, but also how competition for their attention is fierce. In the second part, we look in detail at what Internet of Things developers need and expect from your program. We ll discuss the best practices in how to support your developer constituency by fiercely attacking friction points and by fostering community. We ll also discuss how developers prefer to get educated in your technology, what role money and commercial opportunities play, and how you can reach out to developers in an effective way. Our data from 3,150+ developers lays out a roadmap for the creation of a solid developer program, in tune with developer needs. In the following sections, you get a flavor of what to expect from our Best Practices for IoT Developer Programs report with just a few of the key insights. 8

9 THE RIGHT AUDIENCE FOR LIVE EVENTS If developers enjoy the sense of community, which they do, then reallife events are surely the ultimate, high-touch way to get together. In our experience with clients, events are often the focal points of developer programs - and a big budget-eater! It s worth to look closely at which developers attend the different types of events, and which don t. In general, events like conferences, seminars, workshops, Meetups, and hackathons are a mid-range source of information for developers. Between 10% and 30% of developers attend them, depending on the type of event and the developer segment. Workshops and conferences are the most popular, each a source of information for 22% of developers, followed by Meetups (18%) and hackathons (16%). In other words, you reach only about a fifth of the developer population with events. The expectations towards developer programs to organise events are even lower: only 8% of IoT developers considers events to be a key feature of the support program. 9

10 It is a good practice to tune the events you organise or support to your specific developer audience. For example, developers working on Data Mashups value the formal knowledge transfer offered by seminars, trainings, and workshops (+10 percentage points relative to other developers), and to a lesser extent conferences (+4 pp). In contrast, device makers value the opportunity for playful exploration offered by hackathons (+5 pp). Events have limited reach and are certainly not the activity with the highest ROI in a developer program. They should be considered carefully before including them in the program mix. This said, they can be a valuable addition when they are centered around PR and networking, i.e. community building, and optimized for the right audience. In the full report we explore further which segments of developers are most likely to appreciate events. 10

11 TRAINING: CRUCIAL FOR YOUNG AND OLD The number of devices for which software must be developed is increasing rapidly, and it s far outpacing the inflow of developers. Not only are many organisations that employ developers facing a shortage of skilled people; this lack of supply is going to get worse before it gets better. As new developers enter the fray it s important to get them up to speed as fast as possible. Preferably, they ll build skills in your technology, as opposed to the competition s. The bull case for investing in a training program is clear. Colleges and universities simply don t deliver enough developers, nor the breadth of skills needed in the market. Your program can fill that gap. This becomes especially precarious as we are entering the era of the Internet of Things. Our data shows that 41% of IoT developers have a university degree in computing or software engineering, significantly fewer than in more mature software markets like mobile (48%) or cloud development (49%). This implies that vocational training outside of the formal schooling system carries a bigger weight in IoT than it does in other areas. Different training methods appeal to different audiences. In addition to people s prefered learning style, both the location and the point in their careers in which they find themselves have a big influence on their attitude towards the training that a developer program might offer. 11

12 It should come as no surprise that young, inexperienced people have higher expectations towards developer programs when it comes to training. 30% in the age group expect training to be offered, compared to 23% in the age group. 40% of developers with <1 year of software experience would like to receive training; a number that drops to 18% for the most experienced developers. Youngsters are a majority in IoT. Three quarters of IoT developers (74%) are under 35 years old. Half (48%) have two years of experience or less in developing software. That s a lot of people who could use more training opportunities. A second interesting target group for training are older developers (in particular the over 55 group) who would like to refresh their skills. 32% of 55+ ers appreciate training being offered by vendors - as many as the group! 34% of them use workshops as a way to stay up to date, compared to 22% in other age groups. 12

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