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A few years ago, a number of startups saw the need to provide a cloud-based middleware platform, known as mobile backend-as-a-service (MBaaS), to help app developers handle the proliferation of mobile apps, which can strain service performance, storage capacity and data management. These MBaaS vendors provide tools for hosting the infrastructure behind mobile apps using the cloud. The MBaaS was slow to take off, generating only $216.5 million in revenues for 2012. But that number is forecast to climb to $7.7 billion in revenues by 2017, according to market research firm MarketsandMarkets. MBaaS "reduces the complexities of the application development by dealing with the complex server side programming, reducing the redundancy in creating back-end code blocks, providing ready to integrate features and template back end. Developers can focus more on the front end of the applications and the marketing activities needed for the application," the firm explains. One of the first MBaaS startups was Boston-based Kinvey, founded and headed by Sravish Sridhar. FierceMobileIT sat down with Sridhar to discuss the MBaaS phenomenon and broader issues impacting the enterprise mobility market. FierceMobileIT: How do you see the mobility trend impacting the enterprise in the near future? Sridhar: For our company, we are in the build phase of applications. We are less in the management and deployment of apps--that's more in the enterprise mobility management space. On the build side, I see two things. First, mobility is moving so quickly with new devices, new responsive frameworks, sensors and embedded devices. This is good news for our company. IT is getting to the point where they are saying, "We need a vendor to come in and run our mobile infrastructure and build our mobile infrastructure." All IT wants to do is set rules for the mobile infrastructure, provide that infrastructure access to internal systems, then get out of the way. They want to let the line of businesses build apps using front-end tools of their choice and let them innovate and build apps that they need to be successful. That is all being done via the cloud. We are moving to a world where mobile is driving cloud adoption in the enterprise. So IT is looking for a cloud-based service that the line of businesses can use and consume in a completely self-service fashion. Second, I see a migration toward more sophisticated apps. A couple years ago, most of the app use cases that I would see were primarily being driven by marketing. The apps were trying to mimic the website, doing something for the brand or, in some cases, trying to keep up with the competition. But I'm seeing more and more the case now where enterprises are fundamentally thinking about what an app on a phone or tablet can do to fundamentally change the business process for the better and potentially increase revenue and cut costs. We are seeing more and more use cases that fall into that bucket--more sophisticated transformative apps rather than just apps to be competitive. These are the two major trends I'm seeing again and again when I talk to enterprise customers. FierceMobileIT: Could you talk about what mobile backend-as-a-service entails and how it helps enterprises with app development and deployment? Sridhar: Backend-as-a-service is a cloud platform that allows developers access to four major components: data, identity, business logic and engagement capabilities. It allows them access to these four things via client-side libraries. For the front-end developer, the application programming interface (API) that they care about is not a REST endpoint, but the API for the mobile developer is the client library. So from a developer experience standpoint, they are building apps in a UX-first method. They are building out the front end of the app, dropping the library into the project, and then letting the library take care of a lot of the complicated front-end things like encryption of data, managing data online and off-line, and syncing data with back-end systems, etc. On the back end, they are trying to access data or send data either into the back end or to some third-party source. Same thing with identity--they are trying to authenticate users and determine what privileges they have via the backend-as-a-service platform or via a third-party service. Third, they are trying to consume a lot of engagement features like push notification, SMS, analytics, beacons and so on. Fourth, they are tying all these things together--data, identity and engagement--via new business processes and business logic that they host on the backend-as-a-service platform that brings everything together and makes the app experience very contextual. So backend-as-a-service is a cloud platform that brings together data, identity, business logic and engagement as one cloud service and ties it down to client-side libraries. Read the rest of the Q&A with Sravish Sridhar--including scaling multiple enterprise apps, implications of beacons to developers and more--at the FierceMobileIT website
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Read more about: Sravish Sridhar
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| This week's sponsor is CA Technologies. |  | Webinar: Rethinking Enterprise Mobility Management – Beyond BYOD
Thursday, May 29th, 12pm ET / 9am PT Our panel of experts will help you understand how to develop effective strategies that accelerate mobility transformation and prepare your organization for the mobile future. Register Today! |
The much-rumored Apple iPhone 6 is expected to be coming this summer, according to a report by AppleInsider. A dummy mockup of the 4.7-inch version was published on French website nowhereelse.fr, which shows a thinner, larger phone next to the iPhone 5s. The proposed iPhone has cured edges, round speaker ports, an aesthetic in line with the original iPad mini, a round LED flash port, a three-panel chassis design and a protruding rear camera, according to the report. A similar 3-D, 4.7-inch iPhone 6 model was published on the Chinese-language Apple forum feng.com. "With exact measurements shown onscreen matching those from the dummy model detailed above, it is likely that the schematic--or one like it--was used as a basis for the mockups floating around East Asia. This is not to say that the either are legitimate, but rather the two 'leaked' bits of information are likely closely related," writes AppleInsider. The larger 5.5-inch "phablet" iPhone 6 is rumored to sport a sapphire screen, according to Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst with KGI Securities. According to a report by Taiwan's United Daily News/Economic Daily cited by CNET, around 10 percent of the iPhone 6 handsets are expected to be the larger phablet design. The phablet iPhone is also predicted to be thin like the 4.7-inch model, with a 1920x1080 display. The report expects the iPhone 6 phablet to be at the high-end of the Apple product line.
For more:
- check out the AppleInsider report
- read the CNET article
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The average smartphone has more computing power than NASA used to put a man on the moon, according to former Intel chief Paul Otellini. What does that mean for the enterprise that allows BYOD and/or supplies mobile devices for employees? Those devices are being wasted if workers are just using them to check email and send text messages. The best way to harness that processing power is developing and deploying enterprise apps designed for those gadgets. Enterprise app behemoth Salesforce offers a number of tips to help enterprises with this process. First, enterprises should identify a problem in the workplace and solve that problem in a "mobile-first way." This means the app should be user-centric, not data centric; it should use available data unique to a mobile device, such as location; and it should minimize the number of inputs required to complete an action. Second, the mobile app should give the employee "easy access to relevant and related information." "Well-designed apps visually indicate the differences between types of information for immediate user feedback, often using mobile cards, and drilldowns to avoid cluttering the user interface and distracting from the primary record," explains Salesforce in an ebook. Third, enterprises should develop apps so that typing is limited without limiting functionality. One way to do that is to use mobile friendly controls such as the slider, toggle buttons and spinners. But a great user experience would eliminate the need for typing altogether, Salesforce advises. Fourth, the minimal viable product (MVP), which means the minimum requirements of the enterprise, should be made available as soon as possible to employees so they can provide feedback to the app developer. "Shipping the MVP frequently and often puts the end user in the middle of the design and development process. This way, the user feels as if they have had input into the app's design," the ebook notes. And fifth, consumer apps have raised user expectations about the interface design and user experience, so enterprise app developers need to step up their game and get inspiration from multiple sources. Salesforce recommends that app developers use response design UI frameworks such as Bootstrap and Foundation, as well as design inspiration from sites such as Ads of the World and Behance. Well-designed enterprise mobile apps can help enterprises make the transition to mobility "by reinforcing behavior and increase productivity, making the whole company more successful," Salesforce concludes.
For more:
- see Salesforce's article in AppsTechNews
- check out Salesforce's ebook (reg. req.)
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Mental health monitoring via mobile apps welcomed by most psych outpatients Read more about: User Interface, enterprise mobile apps
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