Kony Write Once, Run Everywhere Mobile Technology WHITE PAPER August 2012 Mobile Application Development Meets the Mainstream
Fragmentation and Chaos Is the New Normal... 3 Content Consumption versus Content Creation... 4 Mobile Application Development Approaches... 6 Iterate and Evolve to Context-Aware Experiences... 6 Mobile Application Development Is Complex... 7 Building an Action Plan... 8 2
Fragmentation and Chaos Is the New Normal We are quickly becoming a mobile world thanks to our smartphones, laptops and tablets and an ever-growing roster of devices. As employees, customers and partners leave the office and home, mobile applications go with them. Today s developers need to take mobile apps into account in their application development strategies. Figure1: Mobile Platform Support by CIOs (courtesy of Gartner Survey, April 2011) It is critical to understand the current levels of fragmentation facing key stakeholders, including consumers, employees and IT managers, in your mobile application development strategy. There are many mobile device types with different operating systems and form factors. It is important to determine which mobile devices should be included in your project planning. Recent research found that the average CIO in Europe and the United States plan to support three mobile platforms. These results prove that mobile enterprises have evolved from a single mobile platform strategy which meant prescribed deployments of traditional enterprise devices like BlackBerry smartphones, into organizations that support employee preferred and owned devices including ios and Android, and in some cases, Windows Phone. Corporate Trends Consumer Trends Developer Trends CIOs must support employeefacing applications on many devices and form factors. Most employees will own several devices. Consumerization always wins, employees don't want "enterprise" devices or "enterprise" apps. Percent of smartphones (U.S.) grows from 43% to >80% by 2015. (Gartner) More than 200 new tablets and more than 250 new smartphones will be announced globally in 2011. (Gartner) New devices and form factors will emerge through 2015. Consumer mobile apps are setting new enterprise expectations (e.g., usability, behavior and style). (Gartner) Mobile AD meets mainstream and Web AD. HTML5 and cross-compilation or multi-channel 100s of new platform vendors. The focus will turn to multichannel, not just mobile. In other words, developers will increasingly think about enabling mobile, tablet, kiosk, social media, and desktop web from a single code base 3
The number of mobile device types is not the only trend to consider when building your mobile application development strategy. Beyond the CIO and Corporate trends, you should consider the consumer and developer trends that will have an impact on your business strategy. Content Consumption versus Content Creation Corporations, consumers and developers constantly consume content using their mobile devices. As new devices have been released to the market, the types of consumption activities users have conducted have changed. Gartner categorizes devices using the major themes of content consumption versus content creation and aligns typical application types from messaging to web browsing, and rich web integration to productivity applications. Figure 1 below outlines the variety of mobile devices based on these major themes and use cases. Figure 2: What Are Users Doing With Their Mobile Devices? The media tablet is considered revolutionary because it has bridged the functions of more traditional smartphone and multi-function devices with the capabilities of traditional notebook and tablets. The media tablet has combined viewability and portability and should be a consideration for all organizations when planning for their own mobile application development projects. Gartner recommends that in addition to the media tablet, organizations think about the additional one or two mobile devices and or platforms that they will need to support, such as media tablet and smartphone, and media tablet plus smartphone and desktop. 4
Six Styles of Mobile Architecture Beyond the mobile device type and the types of applications associated with each are the architectures. There are six mobile architectures that have been emerged over the past four years and the trend is toward thin, or browser-based, architectures. The six mobile architectures include Thick, Rich and Thin, however, there are others to consider. Thick Client Application and application data reside on device. This is typically referred to as Native Rich Client Applications reside on device, data is sourced from online sources. This is typically referred to as Hybrid Thin Client Browser or small downloadable client; neither application nor data reside on device. This is typically referred to as Mobile Web Streaming Client Content and application are streamed from centralized server Messaging Client SMS/e-mail queued to device Key Mobile App Development Trends & Trade-Offs Trade-offs between safety and productivity in tool selection Thinner architectures as networks and the mobile Web improve Mixed Mode vs Hybrid vs Native Enterprise/consumer convergence Volatility and immaturity (of vendors and technologies); the rate of change in increasing Multiple tool vendors; consolidation, acquisitions, failures and strategic changes of direction are inevitable Trading productivity for quality of experience; more generic = easier to do many platforms, but less compelling Testing, permutations Tools gain breadth and sophistication to support all three leading paradigms: native, Web and SMS Mobile tools evolve into multichannel tools Gamification, games are a compelling experience and mobile are great games platforms No Client Voice, DTMF or RFID often provide inputs; content delivered in this manner 5
Mobile Application Development Approaches In addition to mobile device types, developers should consider the two primary approaches to mobile application development: native and Web. There are benefits to using each approach, however, each has its own shortcomings. Figure 2 outlines common traits of mobile applications and where each mobile application development approach is usually superior. Figure 3: Native App or Web App? (courtesy of Gartner) New hybrid and container approaches to mobile application development are blurring the lines between established native and web styles. These contemporary approaches enable developers to take the best qualities from native and web development to create their own application without sacrificing quality. Industry analysts have found that mobile business to consumer applications tend to use web application frameworks injected with native features while business to employee applications use native as a starting point. Iterate and Evolve to Context-Aware Experiences Mobile offers a unique opportunity because it gives users the ability to explore based on their location, make suggestions by pushing messages, and direct and combine value propositions of applications, advertisements and resources. Figure 3 outlines the best practices for a strong user experience strategy regardless of the mobile application development approach. 6
Figure 4: User Experience Strategy Mobile Application Development Is Complex A constantly changing mobile industry results in mobile application development complexity. Industry analysts suggest that the best way to address this complexity is to start mobile application development with a simple framework based on infrastructure and operations research. This framework depicts a lifecycle of the application such as planning, architecting, selecting a solution, deploying, operating and evolving the solution. To apply this model to mobile application development, both a fragmentation and business strategy should be used in project planning. Application lifecycles tend to be impacted by both fragmentation and business strategy. Developers should be sure to include both of these approaches to mobile application development in their planning. Areas that have been found to have particular fragmentation are identified in the chart below with red squares. In addition to the elements of fragmentation are the business strategy items listed with blue circles. 7
Building an Action Plan Developers can use the six steps outlined below along with Figure 3 to build a comprehensive mobile strategy and action plan. 1 Identify how to deal with the new normal by finding ways to provide, manage, and secure mobile devices and apps 2 Educate the organization on the coming sea change in mobile application development 3 Quantify the demand for mobile application development in Business to Enterprise, Business to Business, and Business to Consumer for the next 12 to 18 months 4 Determine relevant supply, governance and risk mitigation strategies to deal with fragmentation 5 Inculcate the six mobile application architecture styles throughout the organization 6 Scrutinize user experience and beef up (automated) testing and support plans Figure 5: Mobile Strategy Action Plan (courtesy of Gartner) 8
For more information about mainstream mobile application development, learn about Kony solutions at www.kony.com About Kony Solutions Kony is the industry s leading mobile application development platform (MADP) provider, with more than 70 of the Fortune 500 among its customers. Kony enables companies to deliver innovative mobile solutions on every mobile device. Leveraging the KonyOne Platform, an application is defined just once, and can be deployed across more than 10,000 devices, seven operating systems and multiple channels, including HTML5 and mobile web, hybrid, native, mixed-mode, kiosks, desktop and tablet applications. The KonyOne Platform provides a universal framework that ensures the best user experience by optimizing all native capabilities for each device operating system and browser. Given the market's rapid rate of device and platform upgrades, Kony future proofs applications against OS and browser updates, providing SLAs that guarantee timely support of the newest operating systems and devices. Leading global brands have built mobile applications with KonyOne, including Hotwire, Huntington Bank, Hyatt, Toyota and Capital One. Learn more at www.kony.com KONY SOLUTIONS, INC 7380 West Sand Lake Road #390 Orlando, Florida 32819 +1.407.730.KONY (5669) Toll Free: 1.888.323.9630 2012 Kony Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. Kony and the Kony Mobile Application Platform are trademarks of Kony Solutions. Apple and iphone are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. BlackBerry is a registered trademark of Research In Motion. Android is a trademark of Google Inc. Other product names mentioned are the property of their respective holders.