Looking Forward to Meeting you in the City by the Bay

I couldn't help myself from throwing in a tribute from Journey to San Francisco!

A week from today, Thursday February 7th and Friday, the 8th, SnAPPii will be exhibiting as a silver sponsor at the 2013 North America AppsWorld conference at the Moscone Center West in San Francisco.

On day one, I will be participating in two action-packed keynote panels discussing Examining the impact of mobilization and app usage within the enterprise at 10am. At 2:30 in the afternoon, I'll be a keynote panelist discussing "Examining tools in enterprise app development and deployment – MEAPs (Mobile Enterprise Application Platforms) & MDMs (Mobile Device Management) working for your business." This panel will tackle subject matter such as enterprise app development and deployment, mobile coding skills, and enterprise requirements.

The SnAPPii team will be on hand at booth 175 to answer questions, showcase the platform, and help any users with hands-on demos.

Would you like to join us at AppsWorld? SnAPPii is giving away a limited number of free passes to the event on a first come, first serve basis.

If you are interested and would like to attend, please respond to sales@snappii.com.

If you'd like to meet during the event with myself or one of the other members of the SnAPPii team for a personal demonstration, please send me an email and the day and time you'd like to meet at the booth. We'd be happy to ensure you receive our personnel attention in learning all about creating Enterprise Mobile Apps for iOS, Android and HTML5 using the Snappii Platform.

Alex

With Snappii, No Need to Fear Developing Native Mobile Apps

Connie Bensen, in her story earlier this week, "Who’s Afraid of Native Mobile Application Development?", made many great points on the fears many enterprises have when it comes to developing native mobile apps, but the Snappii Platform can easily make all of those fears go away.

Who’s afraid of native mobile application development? I can safely say a lot of enterprises.

Native mobile application development has been branded

• expensive
• laborious
• might require re-skilling for different platforms 

Native mobile applications offer

• the best user experience
• has the best access to device features
• native mobile applications typically result in higher performance
• mobile applications that need to access hardware, work best when developed on native platforms.
• Native mobile applications are also most suited for instances when you have a set of specific users or have set behavior patterns.
• Web applications are not necessarily always successful and many enterprises are often left to deal with failed applications.

A recent research by IDC and Appcelerator, of many in the developer community showed dissatisfaction with the level of experience of web applications was not too positive.

Using the SnAPPii Platform, IT departments and Enterprise Mobile Developers are able to build apps at a fraction of the cost of hiring developers for writing code. The Snappii Platform allows any of your staff to develop apps for iOS, Android, and HTML 5 is a WYSIWYG Visual Drag and Drop Editor. When you've completed your layout, you can choose to have your app completed for whichever OS system with the proper code written based on the design you've created and the OS you've requested.

With the SnAPPii Platform, users also have access to a Rich library of Industry Specific Templates. These aren't just any templates, but templates that have been created to provide the same usability as the most sophisticated enterprise mobile app in each industry. This not only makes the development process go more quickly, it also ensures your customers will receive as sophisticated and feature rich application offered by anyone in your industry.

Because of Snappii's Live Build Preview App, you and your development team will be able to test your apps functionality on the platform of your choice, identify any corrections or improvements you'd like to make and retest the app until everyone if fully satisfied with the App before it is released for customers, staff, and/or suppliers and partners to use.

If you or your development team has been afraid of the time, cost and complexity of native app code, relax. The SnAPPii Platform will help ensure your success in the shortest amount of time and at a cost that will guarantee you stay on budget. Visit us today at www.snappii.com and see for yourself how you and your team can begin developing your Enterprise Mobile App today.

Alex

The Snappii Platform Brings Web Services to Your Enterprise App

Whether you are a Snappii user or are just beginning to consider building an Enterprise Mobile App. You can now connect your apps to any web service which supports the RESTful interface. This means that by using the Snappii Platform, you can now create dynamic, data rich applications that will provide all the data both your own personnel and your customers will love!

Connect your apps to popular web services like Salesforce, Google API, Constant Contact, Instagram, Twitter, and Weather.com just for a few examples.  You can also connect your app to databases and systems running inside your company to create enterprise grade apps for customers, partners and employees.

If you are a current Snappii user, the Snappii Support staff will offer free assistance to help you connect your existing apps to a web service of their choice for the next 30 days.

If you haven't become a Snappii customer yet, if you hire Snappii to help develop your Enterprise Mobile App for iOS, Android, and/or HTML 5, we will extend this offer to you as well. A tremendous opportunity to complete your company's Enterprise MobileApp, but get the expertise of the Snappii Support and Development Staff to ensure you are able to smoothly and accurately integrate a web service of your choice quickly into your app.

You can learn more about Snappii's development services and costs on our pricing page.

If you are interested in developing a new app and connecting it to a web service or adding a web service connection to your existing Snappii developed app, please contact Sales at 603-651-0066 or email ddrown@snappii.com.ddrown@snappii.com .

Alex

You Can't Have Quality Assurance(QA) When You Don't Know The Company

Karen Beatrice, in an article on mobilelabsinc.com entitled "Three Common Problems in the Mobile App QA Process" shared the following problems with the mobile App QA process.

Problem #1: Mobile App Testing is Not Thorough – or Not Completed at All

Problem #2 – Lags in Development Can Lead to Shorter Testing Time

Problem #3 – Lack of Requirements Can Inhibit QA Capabilities

I encourage you to go to Karen's article to read more thoughts on these 3 problems.

A blog by astegic references that the "World Quality Report for 2012-2013 revealed that two-thirds of companies are inadequately Testing Mobile Applications."

Other important statistic from the study reveal the following information of great concern.

• Two-thirds of companies are inadequately testing mobile applications
• Only 31% of respondents currently test mobile applications
• 65% of respondents conveyed that they don’t have right tools to test mobile apps.
• 52% do not have access to required devices.
• 34% of organizations lack the testing methodologies and processes
• 29% of organization lacks specialist expertise  necessary to effectively certify mobile application
• Performance of the mobile app has emerged to be primary focus for most of the organizations( 64%)
• 37%  are Testing Mobile App in Manufacturing domain followed by Energy& Utilities and Healthcare(Each 35%)

One of the greatest concerns all enterprises who have or in the process of developing a mobile app is who is in charge of the decision making during the development of their application and, of even greater concern, who is in charge of the QA process.

In too many cases, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the development of an enterprise app is contracted out to either an independent firm or even to two individuals capable of writing Objective C for a native iOS app, another for Java code for a native Andoid app, and possibly even a third for HTML5.

In many cases those same individuals may be tasked with doing the QA on their own code, or often even hiring another organization to just do the QA.  With the incredible popularity of developers with these skills, as you can see by the lists of jobs on both Monster.com and groups specifically for these skills, the costs and availability of these designers can easily become a six figure bidding war.

Regardless of whether the developers do the QA or an organization is hired at another substantial cost, you can guarantee that no matter how much you tried to educate them and provide substantial documentation, no developer or QA lab is going to understand your company and your customer needs for your Application more than your staff.

When you develop enterprise mobile apps on the Snappii Platform, your staff can easily build an app using the WYSIWYG Drag and Drop Visual Editor for iPO, Android and HTML5. Your staff doesn't need to know any code, the Snappii Platform will write the proper code as soon as your code is complete.

At any time in the development process, you can build your app and with the SnAPPii Live Build Preview App downloaded to the device you would like to test, you can begin testing the functionality immediately. If you find corrections or think of other features you'd like to add, you simply return to the editor, make your changes, rebuild the app and test it on your device again.  Because of the visual nature of the Snappii Platform, you can create a development team from different parts of your company like Sales, Marketing, HR, Finance, Service, and others to work on both the development and testing of the app. 

Learn more about the Snappii Platform today by going to http://www.snappii.com. If you find you have questions, use the chat feature to talk to one of our many professional developers or you can send them an email at support@snappii.com. Never hesitate to contact me if you have further questions.

Alex

The Lifecycle of Enterprise Mobile Applications

I came across this article called the "Four Phases of the Enterprise Mobile Application Lifecycle. As I'd shared in my blog, "What to Consider Before Developing an Enterprise Mobile App", I thought there were some more great points for you to consider in preparing to develop your organization's enterprise mobile application as well as reviewing your existing enterprise mobile app and what changes and/or improvements you may want to consider.

As the article states, "the process of mobile application development requires knowledge, skill and experience."

Phase I:
"The first step towards the development of an application is to gather ideas and views.  The most feasible ideas should be shortlisted and should be approved by the higher authorities or a team of experts."

Phase 2:
"An initiation team should be formed to take the ideas and execute them in order to initiate the project. Experts from the IT, Marketing & Legal sectors, at a minimum, should be part of this team. The requirement for the correct functioning of the application must be developed by the team."

One of the benefits of designing your Enterprise Mobile App in the Snappii Platform is it can be viewed and worked on by all the members of your initiation team. The visible What You See is What You Get Drag and Drop editor makes it easy for your entire team to work together to ensure the correct functionality for the entire team is includes.

Phase 3
"An Application and Testing team is one of the most important teams to be formed during this entire process of Mobile Application Development. The functioning of all the features must be ensured."

In addition to the WYSIWYG Visual Editor, your initiation team also has the ability to test the application on every platform you want to build your app to work on, from iOS and Android to HTML 5. You simply download the SnAPPii Live Build Preview App to any mobile device, Smart Phone or Tablet to see exactly how your app will function.  Any improvements and/or additions you'd like to make can easily be made in the Editor and you can quickly reload it and check that you have the functionality and features you want working properly, including the proper data integrations.

Phase 4:
"This part of the project is carried out by the Mobile Application Transition team. The team should focus upon the success of the application by promoting and advertising the application launches."

In the article, "Designing enterprise mobile apps:  Keep it simple to make it great", Suzanne Kattau makes several further points to consider in your enterprise mobile app development.

• "If enterprise users don't find your mobile app simple and easy to use, they won't"
• "Shorter is better when it comes to mobile apps"
• "Great mobile apps are very task focused"
• "the more focused the app is on a specific task, the more effective it's going to be to the enterprise user"

As you're developing your app, ask these two questions?

• "How will I keep my app's functionality focused?"
• "What kind of simple navigation will I provide to users?"

One of the many benefits the Snappii Platform offers is there is no need to know how to write code in Objective-C or Java. Any member of your staff can use the drag and drop editor to build your enterprise mobile app quickly. In addition, Snappii offers a Rich library of pre-built industry specific templates. Not only can these templates by edited to meet your needs, they also are built to include many industry enterprise mobile app standards, so you can ensure your app will provide customers with the features and benefits they'd find in any other industry app.

Try starting the development of your first enterprise mobile app today. Go to http://www.snappii.com. You'll find videos and documents to help you answer and questions you may have and we offer on-line and e-mail assistance from our experienced development team. For literally a tiny fraction of the cost of having to hire trained and educated developers, you can have your app available on your website, the Apple store and the Google store in just days.

If you have further questions, don't hesitate to email today.

Alex

What to consider before developing an enterprise mobile app

I came across a slideshow by Copper Mobile Inc. that I thought provided some interesting statistics, as well as some good suggestions for what you might want to consider and prepare before you begin developing your enterprise mobile application.

• Let's start with some interesting numbers. Technology Analysts at Gartner say, “by 2015, there will be more than 6.7 billion smartphones globally”. TEKsystems talked to more than 1500 IT leaders this past March about what technology trend will impact their organization most. Prioritizing their answers yielded these results. 1. Mobile 2. Cloud Computing 3. Consumerization of IT 4. Social Media.
• Morgan Stanley in their 2012 research report, stated that more users will likely connect to Internet through mobile devices than desktop PCs in 5 years. In my blog last Thursday, I shared that I hold the same opinion.
• An enterprise application lets you and your personnel, particularly those working remotely and in the field, interact with customers directly. Access your business's database remotely, and manage your company processes, projects, and operational plans remotely from any mobile device. Why is this so important to the enterprise? Of the worlds 4 billion mobile phones in use, 1.08 billion are smartphones. As I've said before and also sited in the Morgan Stanley report, "In 2014, mobile Internet usage will overtake desktop usage" By then, mobile Internet should also have taken over desktop Internet usage.
• The next question to ask, is what platforms should I build an enterprise mobile app for? Employees are getting their smartphones & tablets to offices and organizations too are in favor of BYOD (Bring your own device culture). When there's a single application and multiple devices, it is important to have cross-platform support. An Enterprise Mobile App Development Platform like Snappii is a great solution, letting you easily use the visual What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) Drag and Drop Editor to make apps for iOS, Android and HTML5. Best of all, you don't have to learn Objective-C or Java code. The Snappii platform will properly write the code as you build your app.
• You will want to understand that a mobile application is different from the mobile version of your website. There needs to be differences in:the user interface, the screen size the app is designed to appear on, navigation specifically designed for a mobile device, mobile device specific clickable areas, content, be it video, audio, or text designed to show well on mobile devices and tablets, and the list can continue.
• To ensure your app will work properly for your staff and customers, you'll want to ensure you'll have an opportunity to Test your App, Traditionally, App Testing can be time-consuming, expensive, and potentially require even more effort. Testing is important to ensure any potential bug threats are eliminated, there are no high fragmentation in the mobile OS that would increase the chances for errors. Device specific testing is also important, at least for native apps. 
• This is another area where the Snappii Enterprise Mobile App Platform offers you tremendous value. With the SnAPPii Live Build Preview App, you are able to build your app, then test it on any mobile device or tablet you'd like. If you find areas you'd like to change or correct, you can easily make those changes in the Snappii Platform Editor and retest the app before uploading it to either the Apple or Google stores.
• While 60 to 80 percent of the application costs charged by nearly all other developers goes to maintenance and adding features after the initial release, this is another important feature of the Snappii Platform.  Whether an OS (Operating System) changes its requirements or you would like to make more or new changes to your enterprise mobile app, you can ensure the Snappii Platform is kept up to date on any OS changes and you can easily make changes to your App and easily update all of your apps and test them as part of the services you receive as a Snappii customer.
• Finally, it's also important to have a deep understanding of the enterprise app trends within your business marketplace. With a rich library of pre-built business specific templates, you will find a template that will help you ensure your enterprise mobile application offers the features needed to ensure your app meets every industry standard and, in many cases, exceeds those standards.
• Go to http://www.snappii.com today and start building the enterprise mobile app that will grow your business and your customer loyalty in 2013.
• Alex

The Snappii Platform Offers Greater Enterprise Mobile App Development Features in 2013

This week, I've shared many thoughts on what will lie ahead in 2013 for Enterprise Mobile Apps. On Monday, I shared nine specific areas of interest. Thursday, I added four additional thoughts looking forward to 2013.  Today, I'd like to share the four key technical directions for Snappii in 2013.

1.      Connect and Integrate.  We want to make sure that our customers can connect with and integrate apps with data coming from internal systems like MS SQL, Sharepoint, Oracle, SAP, etc. as well as web based services like Salesforce, Twitter, LinkedIn, DropBox, and hundreds of other web-based services available on the Internet. We want to make these integrations easy and “out of the box”, so that every user, even non programmers can connect their apps to the data sources.

As I've said in my other posts this week, a Mobile App is truly not an enterprise app unless it can integrate with the data critical for your app users, whether customers or staff. Snappii will continue to develop data integration to systems like the ones I've mentioned to ensure that your Enterprise Mobile App can bring all the data you need to access to your fingertips, whether on a smart phone, a tablet or another portable device.

2.      Data Management.  We are making it easier to work with data sources by enabling users to select, combine, update and display data in apps across all mobile platforms.

The ability to access data on a mobile device is only of value if you can utilize the data to perform your work remotely and have those changes reflected throughout the enterprise, so everyone is working with the latest data. Whether new customer orders, notes added to a customer file, or new customer information, immediate access to this information from the field will raise customer response time and customer satisfaction to an all time high.

3.      New Platform Features  We will continue to add new features that further simplify creation of enterprise grade, high quality apps.

Based on the Snappii Platform's What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) visual drag and drop editor, we are committed to ensuring that the members of your development team can build your company an Enterprise level Mobile App without the need to know or learn to write code. Whether from IT, Marketing, Sales, Service, and/or Human Resources, the key people within your organization know your needs and those of your customers best and, with Snappii, will have the ability to create the app you need without the budget taxing cost of hiring mobile app developers and attempting to educate them on your business to help them understand the features your app needs to include.

4.      Pre-Built Apps.  We will continue to expand our collection of industry specific pre built apps that are functionally equivalent to apps built by industry leaders in every industry.  The pre-built apps will make it even quicker and simpler for customers to deliver best in class apps to their customers.

Using the rich industry-specific pre-built apps available for customers' use in the Snappii Platform, you won't have to wonder if you've thought of everything you and your customers may want in an app. With a pre-built app, you simply replace the information in the template with your own and can have the assurance that the app you've created is comparable to other apps in your industry. 

Using templates, you can make enterprise apps using the templates for  mobile devices using iOS, Android and HTML 5 operating systems. If you need to update information or add new features to your app, it is quick and easy to make those changes in the Snappii Platform for every OS and rapidly distribute them to all of your users.

This is just a glimpse at a few of the many areas the Snappii Development team is working on. You can rest assured that, when you build your Enterprise Mobile App with Snappii, we are working hard on your behalf to ensure your app will meet every OS change, be capable of incorporating the information your app will need for your workforce and your customers, so your business will operate more productively and more cost-effectively.

Alex

More Thoughts on 2013 and Enterprise Mobile Apps

On Monday, I shared a blog on "What Does 2013 Hold for Enterprise Mobile Apps", based on an article by Priya Viswanathan. In addition to the points shared Monday, I have four additional points I'd like to make.

They would be: 

1) smartphones and tablets continue to outsell laptops and pcs  

In a study conducted by Flurry Analytics in December and reported by Peter Farago, 17.4 million new iOS and Android devices were activated on Christmas day, compared to 4 million in the entire first 20 days of the month.

2) More people realize that they can build apps without programming knowledge 

With salaries and benefits for C++ and Java developers in access of $250,000 annually, a great demand for programmers as can easily be seen on sites like Monster.com or job forums in linkedin.com, businesses will begin to discover enterprise mobile apps can be built far more effectively on Platforms like Snappii. In addition, by employees representing different facets of an organization, apps will be built right the first time and include more of the features that will meet the needs customers are already expressing to staff members.

3) corporations unable to find mobile programmers look for app development tools that leverage existing workforce  

As I mentioned in point 2, corporations are going to discover that the cost of paying an hourly wage to a programmer and/or external app development company will be far more costly. Not only will every change result in having to pay hundreds if not thousands in extra fees, but staff will be tied up from other projects to try to educate the developer on your business and what your customer needs are.  

Nothing is more efficient in developing enterprise mobile apps than getting key personnel from sales, advertising, IT, human resources, shipping, service and any other critical division together to develop the application together.  With an app development tool like the Snappii visual WYSIWYG Drag and Drog Editing Platform, everyone can work on their portion of the app, then get together to review the app, upload it to a device for quality control, make any final changes, then prepare to upload the app and market it to potential users.

4) businesses that don't offer customer facing apps begin to fall behind

The growth in the number of apps being downloaded is simply staggering. In the same Flurry Analytics study references above, on Christmas day alone 328 million apps for iOS and Android were downloaded. Mobile apps are certainly becoming a primary key to the functionality we rely on our Smart phone and tablets to delivery for us. Needless to say, the use of apps in our personal lives is only going to accelerate the expectation for them in the business world too. 

Tomorrow, I am pleased to share the wonderful advances in Enterprise Mobile App Development from Snappii in 2013. Whether you are looking to begin developing enterprise mobile apps for the first time or are a current user of the Snappii Platform, there are many areas where Snappii continues to provide you with the comprehensive, thorough and cost-effective way to build enterprise mobile apps without having to write any programming code.

Looking forward to sharing more with you tomorrow.

Alex