essential guide to becoming a mobile app rock star - part iii - consumer-facing apps

THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO BECOMING A

MOBILE APP ROCK STAR

Part 3:Choosing a Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP)

1THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO BECOMING A MOBILE APP ROCK STAR (PART 3)

Mobile devices and technologies are driving the most sweeping changes in marketing and customer engagement since the Internet. Mobile apps make it possible to reach customers and prospects like never before – reaching key demographics, building engagement, and driving personalized offers that increase loyalty and generate revenue. And mobile apps can dramatically cut costs, as compared with old media and paper-based solutions.

But the more apps you have, the more challenging ongoing maintenance, integration and updates become. This guide, Part 3 in the Essential Guide to Becoming a Mobile App Rock Star, offers guidance on choosing the best Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP) to make mobile apps easier to build and maintain.

Introduction


“ “

Standardizing your Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP)

MEAP vendors offering approaches that support mobile OS diversity have significant advantages over application suite or mobile OS platforms/tools in three situations: 1) when there are three or more applications, 2) when there are three or more targeted OSs or runtime platforms, and 3) when projects involve the integration of three or more back-end systems.

Gartner “Rule of Three” (2012)

Many big organizations have given business units the freedom to create and launch dozens or even hundreds of mobile apps. This has enabled them to quickly deploy innovative applications and achieve rapid return on investment. But now they’re facing major management challenges:

Maintaining apps with bug fixes, supporting new devices and OS updates, and ensuring that content is up to date

Keeping apps up to date when back-end platforms, external service APIs and other integration points change

Updating content from multiple content management systems, back office tools and admin interfaces

Listening to user feedback on the app stores (or internally) and updating apps to keep users satisfied and engaged

Establishing consistent branding across multiple implementations

Securing data (confidential and public), managing user authentication, and enabling traceability


So what should organizations do to make their mobile app portfolio manageable?

As originally stated by Gartner, any organization planning on creating 3 or more mobile apps in the coming years should consider establishing a standardized Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP). In the short term, it may require a bit more work and investment, but the investment will quickly pay off with:

Faster speed to market and ease of keeping the applications up to date

Lower cost of development and maintenance

Enhanced business intelligence

Data and user security

Other benefits, such as brand consistency, change management, CRM and system architecture.


INTEGRATE

DEPLOY

DEVELOP

MEAP

MANAGE


Once the requirements are clear, there is a choice between choosing an existing platform and vendor, building a platform, or possibly a hybrid of the two.

Existing Platform:

Solutions include SAP Mobile Platform, IBM Worklight, KonyOne and DMI Open MEAP.

Creating a Custom Proprietary Platform:

An alternative is to establish a standard framework based on a combination of best practice guidelines, tools and code that can be reused across the applications. Organizations such as MTV and ESPN have done this successfully over time.

Hybrid Model:

The third option is to use an existing platform and customize it based on your needs. This may be a great alternative if there are many common platforms and processes in place already that can be leveraged to create a standard for your mobile apps.

How to choose a MEAP solution


What are the pros and cons of each model?

Pros Cons

• Faster speed to market• Potentially lower cost• Ongoing support

• Tailored to the organization’s needs

• Flexibility

• Combining the best of an existing platform and custom development

• License cost• Locked in to one supplier

• Keeping up to speed with technology development

• Can be costly to develop and keep up to date

• License cost• Locked in to one supplier• Lack of flexibility

Existing platform

Creating a custom platform

Hybrid model


An overview of available platforms

Description Benefits

Create and deploy mobile apps for the workforce and customers.

Mobile application platform to build, run and manage mobile applications.

One of the first MEAP solutions which claims to be standards-based. Reduces coding by up to 90%.

• Provides the greatest number of plugins and tools for SAP integration

• Cross-platform development based on Phonegap, which is the most established dev tool

• Plugins and tools for other IBM platforms• Supports HTML5, Native and Hybrid apps

• Segment solutions and references for all major verticals

• Framework for cross-platform development

SAP Mobile Platform (previously Syclo)

IBM Worklight

KonyOne Studio


Description Benefits

Mobile cloud platform that manages the mobile lifecycle from Design, Build and Integrate to Publish, Run and Manage apps

Backend as a Service solution, offering data integration, legacy system mobilization, as well as complete app backends for developers creating apps

Open development framework with reusable components, back-end plugins for most major platforms, content management, middleware and best practice guidelines.

• Open platform allowing standardized tools

• Client technology enables “write once,” deploy on any device, any version

• Backend as a Service reduces cost of backend development

• Plugins for Oracle, Salesforce

• 100% based on open source• Using a combination of native

development and web technology

Antenna Software AMPChroma

Kinvey

DMI Open MEAP


Conclusion

Take the pain out of managing and maintaining a portfolio of multiple mobile apps by finding the right MEAP solution for your organization. It will deliver benefits now and for years to come.

For more information on how to become an enterprise app rock star, read the other parts of our series.

Part 1: Developing an actionable mobile application strategy

Part 2: Creating a mobile application business case


DMI is the world’s leading provider of enterprise mobility services and solutions. We build enterprise class mobile solutions that generate results for the world’s top brands and businesses. Our mobile solutions combine the award-winning user experience design that has made us one of the top creators of consumer apps, with the deep middleware and engineering expertise that we’ve used to build and manage enterprise applications for the most demanding IT departments in the world. DMI mobility solutions improve business processes, tap new revenue streams, build customer loyalty, and increase employee productivity. And we offer a full range of Managed Services to securely set up, configure, and manage your mobile devices.

The proof:

©2013 Digital Management, Inc. All right reserved.

About DMIDMI One Rock Spring Plaza6550 Rock Spring DrBethesda, MD 20817

DMInc.com

DMI Sales TeamU.S. Sales: 855.963.2099Int’l Sales: [email protected]

We’ve built more than 400 mobile apps—in the past 12 months alone—for more than 150 leading organizations— like Disney, Coca-Cola, Toyota, Vodafone, P&G, The National Guard, and Universal Studios.

We offer brilliant creative and user experience: Our mobile app development group was named the Best Branded App Developer at the 2012 Mobile Entertainment Awards.

We have 500,000 devices under management for more that 100+ clients, including many Fortune 500 companies—like BP, Johnson & Johnson, Sears, The Associated Press, Allergan, and more. At BP, we’re deploying 1,000 managed mobile devices each day.

We provide 24 x 7 x 365 mobile service support for more than 500,000 users. DMI is the one call our customers need to make to resolve any issue—devices, apps, infrastructure, even carriers.

We offer a full range of security options that include Federal-grade hardware-based security, two-factor authentication, secure container, and sophisticated encryption solutions.

With our expertise and economies of scale, we can provide mobility management at a higher service level and on average 20% lower cost than most companies can do on their own.

Pervasive excellence is our commitment to quality service. DMI is one of only a handful of companies that is CMMI L3 appraised for both application development and services, as well as ISO 9001:2008, ISO 27001:2005, and ISO 20000-1:2011 certified. Our average D&B Open Ratings performance score from our clients is 94/100.

essential guide to becoming a mobile app rock star - part iii - consumer-facing apps

Technology