Simplifying Mobile App Integration with SDKs

These compelling mobile services are usually offered by mobile solutions vendors (MSVs) and are integrated into mobile apps with a Software Development Kit (SDK). While integrating mobile apps with SDKs makes it easier for a developer to include an MSV’s new functionality, there is still a significant development effort associated with the mobile integration. This development burden often creates considerable delays to sales for the MSVs.

Today’s ChallengesYou’ve got a great mobile solution, and it resonates with customers every time your product is introduced. When introducing the product features and functions, your solution demonstrates how it will enhance customers’ mobile apps, deliver value and provide a seamless experience for every mobile end-user. As an MSV, you know you have delivered a world-class mobile solution.

MSVs understand that mobile solutions rarely sit in silos these days, and they always fear that one dreaded question that customers often ask: How do I connect your service to my mobile apps? In fact, it’s not just customers that ask this question. Independent

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Mobile application services have the power to transform a good mobile app into a great one by integrating mobile apps with a set of rich functions and services that weren’t originally part of the app.

White Paper: Simplifying Mobile App Integration with SDKs

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Software Vendors (ISVs) (a.k.a. commercial app developers) also do. For them, the question is: How do I integrate your mobile solution to my apps? So far, the answers haven’t been pretty.

Selling a mobile solution to enterprises naturally comes with integration issues that poses a major risk to the sales cycle. In today’s mobile universe, users bring their own EVERYTHING – devices, apps, storage, and more – to the workplace. The integration burden is immense. As a result, deployments are hampered, slowed down by arduous and lengthy proof of concepts (POCs) and commandeer additional time and resources just to prove everything works.

What It Takes to Bring an SDK into Production

For the App DevelopersSDKs are awesome and amazing creations. For an app developer, they simplify the integration of mobile services into a mobile app’s code. SDK integration significantly streamlines coding time that might otherwise take a year or months to code. For developers, they see SDKs as their allies.

However, getting an app developer to implement an SDK isn’t as easy as it sounds. SDKs permanently change apps, and often times, app developers don’t want to make those changes. Additionally, it takes time and a lot of effort to implement an SDK, and it locks the app to the vendor’s SDK – each SDK creates a new app that is built specifically to support the SDK.

For the ISVsISVs in the enterprise community market face similar challenges. Each ISV builds a unique app for an enterprise mobility management (EMM) SDK. With a branded instance of each app for every SDK, it requires teams to support each SDK specific app, as well as ongoing support for each release of the SDK(s) for each SDK-specific app. The process quickly becomes untenable.

For the EnterprisesMobile apps that are already compiled and in the hands of dozens or millions of end-users pose unique challenges. Those in charge of integrating SDKs to mobile apps are often caught between a rock and a hard place. For enterprises that have developed the mobile apps, their developers might agree

to open the apps, implement the SDK at the source code level and release the newly integrated apps. Absent that, the choices for integrating an app and a mobile service are limited.

Often, enterprises don’t control many to most of the apps used by their end-users. So, they have to work with a specific app vendor such as MSVs and ISVs, and its developer to open the app and create an SDK-integrated version of the app. If the app vendor refuses to do that work, the enterprise is stuck. It’s that simple.

Even when an enterprise is open to integrating SDKs into its mobile apps, the process is typically difficult and lengthy. First, the enterprise has to gain access to the SDK and documentation, which usually requires lengthy registration. Then the enterprise’s developer has to study the SDK, its commands, events, etc. Just like any development cycle, the actual implementation of the SDK itself will take time. The developer needs to establish a separate QA cycle for every build.

Every new app for every platform, new or past, for every device running every framework, for every customer, creates a new integration effort, a new build and so on. Versions of each app need to be managed separately, and simultaneously. Sometimes once the enterprise succeeds in the SDK integration, the SDK vendor issues a new release, and the cycle starts all over again.

The Case for FusionThe expectation that mobile apps will “just work” for consumers and enterprise end-users is not going away. They expect every app will function, be easy to use, and enhance their ability to perform tasks in a way that cuts down on time. In addition, enterprises expect each app to be compliant, connected and protected in their corporate environment.

The wealth of capabilities that sit inside the collective SDK universe is impressive. SDKs exist almost for everything from EMM, MDM, MAM platforms, card payments, analytics, security functions and services, biometrics and behavioral systems all the way up to engagement and marketing platforms. Nearly every mobile solution, mobile service or mobile security solution has a SDK.

Knowing this raised the question: How do you connect the full functionality of an SDK to a post-production, fully compiled, app? Is this even possible? Yes, it is.

In the past, app developers were required to have deep knowledge or be a vendor specific expert to implement an SDK. Well-versed developers, no matter what platform or language they used, were required to learn the ins and outs of any SDK to code external services to their apps. These same developers were required to create, manage and complete a growing range of development cycles, QA runs, and other procedures just to manage every SDK implementation.

Why Appdome’s FusionAppdome’s patented* Fusion technology delivers mobile integration automatically and swiftly by eliminating the burden of implementing SDKs in pre-production environments. That means the app remains the app and does not need to be branched to support every single SDK your company (or customers) wish to implement.

5 Reasons to Deliver SDKs with Appdome’s Fusion

1. Speed of delivery Appdome’s Fusion is fast. Leveraging the automation of a mobile

integration workflow and the codeless fusing of an SDK, Fusion makes delivery to test and to market light speeds ahead of the “traditional” process.

2. Technology adoption (your SDK) Customers no longer need to cycle through a knowledge base,

testing, and extremely long POCs. They will be able to easily adopt third party services from MSVs and ISVs’ capabilities without roadblocks. In fact, MSVs no longer have to consider, or limit, the sophistication of an SDK just to ensure it’s not too time consuming to implement.

3. Significantly increase customer base The easier it is to integrate a new technology, the faster your

customer base will grow. Imagine MSVs of SDKs for the financial Industry being able to go to brokerage, retail, wealth management, corporate finance and other groups in the same company with referenceable successful customers that work three floors down. Or the multiple ISVs that can now offer your crash analytics, payment card tools, GPS info, etc. to all their customers. Fusion allows MSVs to accelerate their business based on the power the technology inside their SDKs, regardless of their length of business and size of their professional services team.

4. Alleviate traditional processes/concerns The most commonly asked questions that stall your delivery

process are no longer an issue. Questions such as best of breed SDKs, maintenance, upgrading process, and best possible way for integration, are now easily answered. Regardless of the size or type of SDK, the process to build, sell, and deliver is now seamless.

5. Faster and increased revenue Fusion eliminates sales delays caused by limited development

resources for SDK integration and reduce the time needed for POCs, which can make the difference between missing and exceeding revenue goals.

SummaryThe Appdome platform simultaneously eliminates the development burden on the customer and the sales friction for MSVs by automating the process of integrating mobile apps with SDKs. Appdome’s Fusion is a time saving, comprehensive, and symbiotic service that fuses SDKs to mobile apps so they can be enriched with valuable third party capabilities/services for an enhanced user experience.

With Appdome, the adoption of a mobile service is no longer held back by the development challenges of SDK integration. Appdome frees MSVs from all the mobile SDK integration concerns and provides a competitive edge for them, i.e. Appdome embeds all the richness of the MSV’s mobile services.

To learn more about the Appdome platform, visit appdome.com or open a free Appdome account and start fusing.

About AppdomeAppdome is a productivity platform for mobile integration, providing the rapid integration of multiple third-party functions to apps, shortening the deployment cycle and connecting mobile apps to other services on demand. The codeless service operates as a mobile integration workflow in the cloud, and allows users to perform integration projects on the final application package. No source code or development expertise is required. Likewise, no modifications to an app or an SDK are required to complete integration projects on the platform. The solution is currently used by the world's leading financial, healthcare and e-commerce companies to support productivity, compliance and security for consumers and employees. The company is based in Silicon Valley, United States and Tel Aviv, Israel. For more information, visit www.appdome.com.

White Paper: Simplifying Mobile App Integration with SDKs

3 | info@appdome.com / www.appdome.com

Software Vendors (ISVs) (a.k.a. commercial app developers) also do. For them, the question is: How do I integrate your mobile solution to my apps? So far, the answers haven’t been pretty.

Selling a mobile solution to enterprises naturally comes with integration issues that poses a major risk to the sales cycle. In today’s mobile universe, users bring their own EVERYTHING – devices, apps, storage, and more – to the workplace. The integration burden is immense. As a result, deployments are hampered, slowed down by arduous and lengthy proof of concepts (POCs) and commandeer additional time and resources just to prove everything works.

What It Takes to Bring an SDK into Production

For the App DevelopersSDKs are awesome and amazing creations. For an app developer, they simplify the integration of mobile services into a mobile app’s code. SDK integration significantly streamlines coding time that might otherwise take a year or months to code. For developers, they see SDKs as their allies.

However, getting an app developer to implement an SDK isn’t as easy as it sounds. SDKs permanently change apps, and often times, app developers don’t want to make those changes. Additionally, it takes time and a lot of effort to implement an SDK, and it locks the app to the vendor’s SDK – each SDK creates a new app that is built specifically to support the SDK.

For the ISVsISVs in the enterprise community market face similar challenges. Each ISV builds a unique app for an enterprise mobility management (EMM) SDK. With a branded instance of each app for every SDK, it requires teams to support each SDK specific app, as well as ongoing support for each release of the SDK(s) for each SDK-specific app. The process quickly becomes untenable.

For the EnterprisesMobile apps that are already compiled and in the hands of dozens or millions of end-users pose unique challenges. Those in charge of integrating SDKs to mobile apps are often caught between a rock and a hard place. For enterprises that have developed the mobile apps, their developers might agree

to open the apps, implement the SDK at the source code level and release the newly integrated apps. Absent that, the choices for integrating an app and a mobile service are limited.

Often, enterprises don’t control many to most of the apps used by their end-users. So, they have to work with a specific app vendor such as MSVs and ISVs, and its developer to open the app and create an SDK-integrated version of the app. If the app vendor refuses to do that work, the enterprise is stuck. It’s that simple.

Even when an enterprise is open to integrating SDKs into its mobile apps, the process is typically difficult and lengthy. First, the enterprise has to gain access to the SDK and documentation, which usually requires lengthy registration. Then the enterprise’s developer has to study the SDK, its commands, events, etc. Just like any development cycle, the actual implementation of the SDK itself will take time. The developer needs to establish a separate QA cycle for every build.

Every new app for every platform, new or past, for every device running every framework, for every customer, creates a new integration effort, a new build and so on. Versions of each app need to be managed separately, and simultaneously. Sometimes once the enterprise succeeds in the SDK integration, the SDK vendor issues a new release, and the cycle starts all over again.

The Case for FusionThe expectation that mobile apps will “just work” for consumers and enterprise end-users is not going away. They expect every app will function, be easy to use, and enhance their ability to perform tasks in a way that cuts down on time. In addition, enterprises expect each app to be compliant, connected and protected in their corporate environment.

The wealth of capabilities that sit inside the collective SDK universe is impressive. SDKs exist almost for everything from EMM, MDM, MAM platforms, card payments, analytics, security functions and services, biometrics and behavioral systems all the way up to engagement and marketing platforms. Nearly every mobile solution, mobile service or mobile security solution has a SDK.

Knowing this raised the question: How do you connect the full functionality of an SDK to a post-production, fully compiled, app? Is this even possible? Yes, it is.

In the past, app developers were required to have deep knowledge or be a vendor specific expert to implement an SDK. Well-versed developers, no matter what platform or language they used, were required to learn the ins and outs of any SDK to code external services to their apps. These same developers were required to create, manage and complete a growing range of development cycles, QA runs, and other procedures just to manage every SDK implementation.

Why Appdome’s FusionAppdome’s patented* Fusion technology delivers mobile integration automatically and swiftly by eliminating the burden of implementing SDKs in pre-production environments. That means the app remains the app and does not need to be branched to support every single SDK your company (or customers) wish to implement.

5 Reasons to Deliver SDKs with Appdome’s Fusion

1. Speed of delivery Appdome’s Fusion is fast. Leveraging the automation of a mobile

integration workflow and the codeless fusing of an SDK, Fusion makes delivery to test and to market light speeds ahead of the “traditional” process.

2. Technology adoption (your SDK) Customers no longer need to cycle through a knowledge base,

testing, and extremely long POCs. They will be able to easily adopt third party services from MSVs and ISVs’ capabilities without roadblocks. In fact, MSVs no longer have to consider, or limit, the sophistication of an SDK just to ensure it’s not too time consuming to implement.

3. Significantly increase customer base The easier it is to integrate a new technology, the faster your

customer base will grow. Imagine MSVs of SDKs for the financial Industry being able to go to brokerage, retail, wealth management, corporate finance and other groups in the same company with referenceable successful customers that work three floors down. Or the multiple ISVs that can now offer your crash analytics, payment card tools, GPS info, etc. to all their customers. Fusion allows MSVs to accelerate their business based on the power the technology inside their SDKs, regardless of their length of business and size of their professional services team.

4. Alleviate traditional processes/concerns The most commonly asked questions that stall your delivery

process are no longer an issue. Questions such as best of breed SDKs, maintenance, upgrading process, and best possible way for integration, are now easily answered. Regardless of the size or type of SDK, the process to build, sell, and deliver is now seamless.

5. Faster and increased revenue Fusion eliminates sales delays caused by limited development

resources for SDK integration and reduce the time needed for POCs, which can make the difference between missing and exceeding revenue goals.

SummaryThe Appdome platform simultaneously eliminates the development burden on the customer and the sales friction for MSVs by automating the process of integrating mobile apps with SDKs. Appdome’s Fusion is a time saving, comprehensive, and symbiotic service that fuses SDKs to mobile apps so they can be enriched with valuable third party capabilities/services for an enhanced user experience.

With Appdome, the adoption of a mobile service is no longer held back by the development challenges of SDK integration. Appdome frees MSVs from all the mobile SDK integration concerns and provides a competitive edge for them, i.e. Appdome embeds all the richness of the MSV’s mobile services.

To learn more about the Appdome platform, visit appdome.com or open a free Appdome account and start fusing.

About AppdomeAppdome is a productivity platform for mobile integration, providing the rapid integration of multiple third-party functions to apps, shortening the deployment cycle and connecting mobile apps to other services on demand. The codeless service operates as a mobile integration workflow in the cloud, and allows users to perform integration projects on the final application package. No source code or development expertise is required. Likewise, no modifications to an app or an SDK are required to complete integration projects on the platform. The solution is currently used by the world's leading financial, healthcare and e-commerce companies to support productivity, compliance and security for consumers and employees. The company is based in Silicon Valley, United States and Tel Aviv, Israel. For more information, visit www.appdome.com.

White Paper: Simplifying Mobile App Integration with SDKs

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4 | info@appdome.com / www.appdome.com

Software Vendors (ISVs) (a.k.a. commercial app developers) also do. For them, the question is: How do I integrate your mobile solution to my apps? So far, the answers haven’t been pretty.

Selling a mobile solution to enterprises naturally comes with integration issues that poses a major risk to the sales cycle. In today’s mobile universe, users bring their own EVERYTHING – devices, apps, storage, and more – to the workplace. The integration burden is immense. As a result, deployments are hampered, slowed down by arduous and lengthy proof of concepts (POCs) and commandeer additional time and resources just to prove everything works.

What It Takes to Bring an SDK into Production

For the App DevelopersSDKs are awesome and amazing creations. For an app developer, they simplify the integration of mobile services into a mobile app’s code. SDK integration significantly streamlines coding time that might otherwise take a year or months to code. For developers, they see SDKs as their allies.

However, getting an app developer to implement an SDK isn’t as easy as it sounds. SDKs permanently change apps, and often times, app developers don’t want to make those changes. Additionally, it takes time and a lot of effort to implement an SDK, and it locks the app to the vendor’s SDK – each SDK creates a new app that is built specifically to support the SDK.

For the ISVsISVs in the enterprise community market face similar challenges. Each ISV builds a unique app for an enterprise mobility management (EMM) SDK. With a branded instance of each app for every SDK, it requires teams to support each SDK specific app, as well as ongoing support for each release of the SDK(s) for each SDK-specific app. The process quickly becomes untenable.

For the EnterprisesMobile apps that are already compiled and in the hands of dozens or millions of end-users pose unique challenges. Those in charge of integrating SDKs to mobile apps are often caught between a rock and a hard place. For enterprises that have developed the mobile apps, their developers might agree

to open the apps, implement the SDK at the source code level and release the newly integrated apps. Absent that, the choices for integrating an app and a mobile service are limited.

Often, enterprises don’t control many to most of the apps used by their end-users. So, they have to work with a specific app vendor such as MSVs and ISVs, and its developer to open the app and create an SDK-integrated version of the app. If the app vendor refuses to do that work, the enterprise is stuck. It’s that simple.

Even when an enterprise is open to integrating SDKs into its mobile apps, the process is typically difficult and lengthy. First, the enterprise has to gain access to the SDK and documentation, which usually requires lengthy registration. Then the enterprise’s developer has to study the SDK, its commands, events, etc. Just like any development cycle, the actual implementation of the SDK itself will take time. The developer needs to establish a separate QA cycle for every build.

Every new app for every platform, new or past, for every device running every framework, for every customer, creates a new integration effort, a new build and so on. Versions of each app need to be managed separately, and simultaneously. Sometimes once the enterprise succeeds in the SDK integration, the SDK vendor issues a new release, and the cycle starts all over again.

The Case for FusionThe expectation that mobile apps will “just work” for consumers and enterprise end-users is not going away. They expect every app will function, be easy to use, and enhance their ability to perform tasks in a way that cuts down on time. In addition, enterprises expect each app to be compliant, connected and protected in their corporate environment.

The wealth of capabilities that sit inside the collective SDK universe is impressive. SDKs exist almost for everything from EMM, MDM, MAM platforms, card payments, analytics, security functions and services, biometrics and behavioral systems all the way up to engagement and marketing platforms. Nearly every mobile solution, mobile service or mobile security solution has a SDK.

Knowing this raised the question: How do you connect the full functionality of an SDK to a post-production, fully compiled, app? Is this even possible? Yes, it is.

In the past, app developers were required to have deep knowledge or be a vendor specific expert to implement an SDK. Well-versed developers, no matter what platform or language they used, were required to learn the ins and outs of any SDK to code external services to their apps. These same developers were required to create, manage and complete a growing range of development cycles, QA runs, and other procedures just to manage every SDK implementation.

Why Appdome’s FusionAppdome’s patented* Fusion technology delivers mobile integration automatically and swiftly by eliminating the burden of implementing SDKs in pre-production environments. That means the app remains the app and does not need to be branched to support every single SDK your company (or customers) wish to implement.

5 Reasons to Deliver SDKs with Appdome’s Fusion

1. Speed of delivery Appdome’s Fusion is fast. Leveraging the automation of a mobile

integration workflow and the codeless fusing of an SDK, Fusion makes delivery to test and to market light speeds ahead of the “traditional” process.

2. Technology adoption (your SDK) Customers no longer need to cycle through a knowledge base,

testing, and extremely long POCs. They will be able to easily adopt third party services from MSVs and ISVs’ capabilities without roadblocks. In fact, MSVs no longer have to consider, or limit, the sophistication of an SDK just to ensure it’s not too time consuming to implement.

3. Significantly increase customer base The easier it is to integrate a new technology, the faster your

customer base will grow. Imagine MSVs of SDKs for the financial Industry being able to go to brokerage, retail, wealth management, corporate finance and other groups in the same company with referenceable successful customers that work three floors down. Or the multiple ISVs that can now offer your crash analytics, payment card tools, GPS info, etc. to all their customers. Fusion allows MSVs to accelerate their business based on the power the technology inside their SDKs, regardless of their length of business and size of their professional services team.

4. Alleviate traditional processes/concerns The most commonly asked questions that stall your delivery

process are no longer an issue. Questions such as best of breed SDKs, maintenance, upgrading process, and best possible way for integration, are now easily answered. Regardless of the size or type of SDK, the process to build, sell, and deliver is now seamless.

5. Faster and increased revenue Fusion eliminates sales delays caused by limited development

resources for SDK integration and reduce the time needed for POCs, which can make the difference between missing and exceeding revenue goals.

SummaryThe Appdome platform simultaneously eliminates the development burden on the customer and the sales friction for MSVs by automating the process of integrating mobile apps with SDKs. Appdome’s Fusion is a time saving, comprehensive, and symbiotic service that fuses SDKs to mobile apps so they can be enriched with valuable third party capabilities/services for an enhanced user experience.

With Appdome, the adoption of a mobile service is no longer held back by the development challenges of SDK integration. Appdome frees MSVs from all the mobile SDK integration concerns and provides a competitive edge for them, i.e. Appdome embeds all the richness of the MSV’s mobile services.

To learn more about the Appdome platform, visit appdome.com or open a free Appdome account and start fusing.

About AppdomeAppdome is a productivity platform for mobile integration, providing the rapid integration of multiple third-party functions to apps, shortening the deployment cycle and connecting mobile apps to other services on demand. The codeless service operates as a mobile integration workflow in the cloud, and allows users to perform integration projects on the final application package. No source code or development expertise is required. Likewise, no modifications to an app or an SDK are required to complete integration projects on the platform. The solution is currently used by the world's leading financial, healthcare and e-commerce companies to support productivity, compliance and security for consumers and employees. The company is based in Silicon Valley, United States and Tel Aviv, Israel. For more information, visit www.appdome.com.

*Yehuda et al. Method and a system for merging several binary executables. U.S. Patent 9,934,017 B2 filed November 15, 2015, and issued April 3, 2018.