Summa

So - do you remember where you were on June 29, 2007? You probably didn’t realize it - but the world changed that day. No, this was no Moon landing - this was the introduction of the first generation iPhone. With over 2 billion application downloads later, the iPhone has changed the way mobile computing is perceived and has forced its competitors to dramatically upgrade their product offerings to compete. There is so much momentum in mobile computing now, things will never be the same. But - that’s a good thing!

Just as companies flocked to the web in the late 90’s, companies are flocking to the mobile arena today.  Moving toward web enablement in the 90’s was scary, so is moving toward mobile applications today. Most new endeavors that are worth the effort are scary in the beginning.  There are some simple questions that can get yourself and your organization thinking about mobile application development.

•    Why is my application a fit?
•    Why now?
•    How hard is it?
•    What should I worry about?
•    How do I get started?

Let’s take some time and address these areas of concern/interest.

Why is my application a fit?

Let’s make an assumption for this blog post that your organization has a web site today.  Obviously, this web site is very important to your organization as a conveyor of information and/or as a mechanism of commerce.  But is this web site only useful to people when they are sitting down at home or the office?  Wouldn’t you want your website to be useful to your clients at any time of the day, from any location?  Or better yet - does your web site have some special offering to mobile clients that would be a huge win?  Can your application benefit from mobile functionality such as photos or GPS information?  In the end, only your organization and product management can determine if a mobile application strategy is appropriate.  But if your application can enable your clients to access your company’s offering more often and from wherever, chances are it will be a wise investment to develop a mobile application strategy.  People are using their mobile devices more and more and their desktop/laptop devices less and less, and this trend probably is not going to change since mobile devices are becoming more and more powerful.

Why now?

Traditionally, the mobile market has been fractured.  There are so many suppliers, so many options, and they didn’t have consistent programming interfaces or even web browsing capabilities.  This made developing an application very hard, because how did you choose what to target or how to implement?  However, now, the iPhone is really staking out a leadership position in the mobile market.  According to a CNNMoney.com(1) article, iPhone now represents a 51% share of all smartphone traffic in the United States.  While this is not a true measure of market share, it does represent how much more the iPhone is used compared to any competitor - and the competitors aren’t really even close.  So what does this mean?  In many eyes, Apple has distinguished themselves significantly enough that a clear leader has been established and it is now worthwhile to develop a mobile application for this platform.

Another side of the “why now” is the simple perception that if you don’t have an iPhone offering, you are lagging behind technologically.  iPhone applications exist for every conceivable use today.  If you have a potential offering and aren’t providing the service on the iPhone platform, one of your competitors will.

That’s a little bit to digest for now.  In the next blog post - we will finish out the list of questions to consider.

(1) http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/02/12/iphone-now-represents-51-of-us-smartphone-traffic-report/