Enterprise Mobility & Connected Devices Blog

For the Enterprise, Mobile Strategies Approaching a "Make or Break Moment"

With device proliferation continuing, determining the appropriate mobility architecture and app approach is becoming a critical and key initiative for organizations - spanning all sizes and industry segments. As with every emerging technology, some companies will move more quickly and make more meaningful investments. As evidenced by the following statements, GE recognizes the transformative opportunity that mobile technologies can bring.

"This past year was a big one for innovation, but few technologies saw as exponential a rise as the mobile app" and "At GE we have a robust and vibrant suite of mobile apps that align with and complement our software ecosystem to set the digital future of GE."

Charlene Begley
SVP & CIO
General Electric

Organizations like GE have the luxury of having well funded (and large) IT organizations that can invest in mobile expertise and have the ability to empower their workforces with mobile applications that can enhance productivity and profitability.

Not all companies have this luxury; in fact the slow economic recovery has many IT organizations running lean, delaying IT modernization projects, and equipment/infrastructure upgrades that had previously been planned. Coinciding with this trend is the continued BYOD (bring your own device) movement of employees bringing their personal mobile devices into the workplace - which in our view presents a significant opportunity for companies and for enterprise oriented ISVs and the dozens of mobile startups whose business models are predicated around providing cost effective tools to the market that can empower IT organizations with app creation, and help organizations grow their mobile workforce.

The Days of Smartphones Being Used Solely for Accessing email and Contacts are Numbered

For organizations that lack the resources, knowledge, or budget to create mobile apps in-house, the capabilities and tools that MEAP vendors (and other mobile development environment vendors) are providing can help to bring custom app creation in house.  The wide array of HTML, CSS and Javascript to native development tools enable web developers to create apps for multiple mobile platforms using their web development skills. This trend also is allowing developers with strong experience in front-end web development to take advantage of powerful tools that will simplify their entry into developing apps for mobile platforms.

The scripting and mark-up languages used for websites (HTML, CSS and Javascript) without question offer the simplest route to developing basic mobile applications, and are far less complex to learn than developing native code on any of the popular mobile platforms. Native application development will continue to be a critical capability; however, we also see rich internet and web based apps becoming more important moving forward – for both B2C and B2E scenarios.

Companies are truly at a make or break period in this mobile boom, and should capitalize on the tools that can empower their IT organizations to cost effectively create custom mobile applications. We see these capabilities as helping to level the playing field for companies which lack large IT staffs and budgets - with the positive result being a more productive mobile workforce.