What’s Your App’s Best Feature?

Just as if you were identifying your own personal best feature, or perhaps that of a loved one, sometimes it can be useful to make the same recognition in your mobile app. While doing so is not always a simple task, recognizing your app’s best feature will provide many great benefits to your mobile enterprise, including aiding your marketing team, as well as other aspects such as your PR and customer service departments. With that said, it goes without saying that a person’s best feature is usually different than that of a mobile market offering, however, you technically could have a personality trait and technological feature that are the same. More often though, your app’s best feature will be something like its GPS capabilities, or its privacy protection, while a person’s best feature will be their eyes, hair, or something along those lines.  In order to help you accurately identify exactly what your app’s best feature is, here are some simple suggestions on how to do so. 

Making A Distinction

When identifying your app’s best feature, the first step is generally to make a distinction between good features and bad features. Then, once you have a handful of your app’s good features, you will be able to more accurately pick out which is truly the best. This is also a helpful method for picking out the bad features of your mobile app that you can subsequently improve down the road. And who knows, then, one of those features that originally proved to be horrible might end up some day being the best. There are very few methods of identifying your app’s best feature that are more reliable than first making a distinction between its good and bad features. Once you do so, the rest is pretty much down hill from there. In other words, it is much easier to decide on your app’s best feature when picking from five good ones opposed to choosing from a mixture of a dozen both good and bad features. 

Getting Customer Feedback

Another extremely useful method of identifying your app’s best feature is by taking the word of your customers. After all, the people that use your app most often are much more likely to have an accurate opinion of what its best feature truly is. For such reason, you should undoubtedly use this to your advantage.  Listening to the mobile device users that download your app and use it on a frequent basis is not only a reliable method of figuring out which feature is best, you can use such an opportunity to gain additional feedback for your app in order to make improvements in the future. Also, you can compare which feature you think is best with which your loyal user base does. Making such a comparison provides valuable information to many aspects of your mobile enterprise that can be used to make future decisions pertaining to all of its apps. 

Conclusion

Whether it is listening to the most frequent users of your mobile app, or by first making a distinction between its good and bad features, it is important to take as many aspects into consideration when identifying your app’s best feature. In other words, if you can use both of the aforementioned methods of identifying your app’s best feature, it will only provide you with a more accurate method of doing so.

Drivers for Government Mobility

Any democratic government is elected by the people, consists of the people, and is intended to work for the people. Therefore, it is important that the government’s ways of working are aligned to that of its people. It should keep a close tab on the current circumstances, situations and trends that impact the lives of the junta that is governed by them, and evolve its policies and procedures to address the same. Therefore the mega trend of mobility cannot be ignored by the powers that be. It has to be considered in the decision making for the government technology. Thee are many drivers for mobility in government today.

 

1. Mobility Can Bridge The Digital Gap:

 

When the e-government initiative was first introduced, a lot of people thought that it would not be able to penetrate the low-income population and might fail. This notion has since then been proven wrong. There are people today who feel similarly unenthusiastically about the mobile initiative of the white house. However, the data says otherwise.

 

Smartphones are cheaper than laptops, and it makes them a good computing choice for people who cannot afford one. As per the Pew Internet & American Life Project report, 34 percent of adults in the US, with household income less than $30,000, own a smartphone. This is a 12 percent increase over the previous year numbers. There are at least 5 different state governments currently implementing a variety of mobile apps for use by the local residents.

 

2. Mobility Can Change Relationships Between Citizens And Government:

 

The features of the mobile devices offer many functionalities that are not available through the online portals. These include the geo – positioning system (GPS), the camera, and other sensors like the accelerometer and gyroscope. These features add context awareness to the communication, which is another thing unavailable to the web users.

 

Applying for benefits and services creates questions and requires documentation. Mobility can streamline this process. Governments can mobile-enable portals and use these value added features to help leapfrog personalization and improve convenience. Research reveals that this move from standardized to personalized service is a key shift for governments to more cost-effectively deliver public service outcomes that citizens want.

 

3. Mobility Can Make the Agencies More Proactive Than Reactive:

 

For the public services to be meaningful, they cannot be reactive. If you have to have a complaint or resident communication before you act, the service model is wrong. The governments services should be insight driven, and to drive insight, there needs to be an integration and collaboration of the systems across agencies. This collaboration can drive the required proactive behavior.

 

With the help of smartphones and tablets, the on – the – ground data collection becomes much easier. From Law enforcement to emergency response teams to public surveyors, all agencies find use for the mobile data collection systems, whether on the smart devices, or as an in – vehicle system. This data can be instantly uploaded on to the central servers where it is accessible by the analysts and other teams, who can act on the information.

 

4. Increased Productivity And Satisfaction:

 

According to a February 2012 CDW-G report on federal mobility, almost all the federal IT team members say that they have mobile devices deployed for their agencies. Another interesting fact is that nearly ninety percent of the employees who were actively using the smart devices for work related activities, felt that they made them more productive. According to them, the productivity was most obvious when they were travelling for work. Also, almost seven tenths of the employees believed that an increase in mobile adoption in the government agencies would improve the citizen related services.

 

It is clear, that mobility rings in productivity, proactivity, and employee satisfaction. We would all like to see our government become more mobile.

 

 

Why Mobile Applications Fail

When you consider the world of mobility, the application ecosystem is like the air that the inhabitants breathe in order to survive. If you remove mobile applications from the equation, the ‘smart’ devices will lose their brilliance, becoming overpriced feature phones at best. The application economy is what keeps the ‘smartness’ in, allowing these shiny rectangles to achieve far more than just call people. Even in the enterprise domain, the popularity of the mobile devices is because these pieces of code can do wonders in terms of automating and mobilizing so many workflows in the organization.

 

However, there are a lot of businesses, whose mobility journey does not bear the results that they thought they would, and this leads to heartburn, wasted effort and money, and most importantly, the derailing of business objectives. Why does this happen?  To get an answer to that question, we need to dig deeper, and see the impact of the failures, to analyze what expectations were missed.

 

Impact 1 – Business Disruption

 

The biggest impact of the unavailability or failure of technology is the impact on the business. There have been numerous reports of the workforce not being able to fulfill their job tasks because the mobile application did not work. This implies that actual business downtime occurred because of the reliance on mobile applications. It is also not surprising, that the impacted teams were not limited to the ones using the application. Other teams and functions in the value chain were also rendered unproductive.

 

Impact 2 – Missed Deadlines

 

Consequent to the downtime experienced, the deadlines of technology and business initiatives get impacted. When the stakeholders are unavailable to share data or to collaborate, or are busy completing missed tasks, the rest of the team is left unproductive, causing delays, and misses.

 

Impact 3 – Loss of Promised Agility

 

A lot of enterprises buy into the mobile dream because they want to be agile and efficient. The mobile application they so painstakingly build, or pay to have built, is supposed to drive faster innovation and collaboration amongst the operations teams. However, with the application not living up to the expectations, the results are typically much farther from the promise. The people in the field are left high and dry, while the operations managers have to resort to email to allocate work.

 

Impact 4  - Renouncement of Apps

 

Lastly, with the broken promises, failed projects, a frustrated workforce, and an embarrassed development team in its wake, the errant applications are abandoned, and the cost written off. This generally is followed by a period where the proponents of mobility in the organizations being unable to meet the gaze of colleagues.

 

Reasons For Failure:

 

Now that we understand the widespread impact of a failed mobile application, exploring the reason(s) for the failure is very important. The 2 most common reasons why most of the failed mobile application initiatives fall short are:

 

1. Lack of coherent strategy: The teams that own the project operate in a functional silo, and are not a part of the larger, enterprise wide strategy. Therefore, the vision of the project did not factor in the impact and integrations with other functions and processes.

 

2. Integration with backend systems: More often than not, enterprise applications require integration with a number of internal enterprise systems. These integrations need to be planned, designed, implemented, and most importantly, maintained well. A number of times, the integrations stop working when something changes on the internal system.

It has been said before, and it will be said again success of any project lies in planning more than it does in execution. So, in order to avoid failure, plan well, and include the stakeholders early.

What Is Your App’s Competitive Advantage?

A competitive advantage, for lack of a better explanation, is something that your company, or one of its products, offers that no other does. In the case of a mobile app, a competitive advantage is not unlike any other product bought or sold around the world. Mobile apps have competitive advantages just as do lawn mowers, cars, or even juice blenders. While these products offer tangible competitive advantages such as faster acceleration in a car, or more precision cutting on a lawn mower, a mobile app has more intangible advantages, such as easier interface navigation, or more enjoyable interaction. If you are unsure of what your mobile app’s competitive advantage is, there is always the chance that it simply does not have one. In such case, you should feverishly try to develop one, as your app will never become one of the top sellers in its market without at least one competitive advantage. To help you do so, here are some ideas to develop your app’s competitive advantage.

 

A Reduced Selling Price

 

One of the easiest competitive advantages to develop is that of a reduced selling price. If you can offer the exact same, or remarkably similar, features compared to another app in your market, but do so at a reduced price, then you will have very easily created a competitive advantage. It you realize that your app is without a competitive advantage and is already on the market, the easiest, and in most cases, best way to create such an advantage is by reducing its selling price. This way you do not have to change anything about your app, all you really have to do is plan its finances accordingly.

 

A New Feature

 

Offering a new feature that your competition is lacking is another useful method of creating a competitive advantage for your mobile app. If you can do so without your competitors copying it, then it will be even better. While you basically have zero control over this aspect of your competitive advantage, the fact that you originated the feature will constitute as enough of an advantage. For example, a new feature serving as a competitive advantage could end up being something related to your individual industry, or it could be a feature as generic as your app’s welcome screen. The point of creating a competitive advantage for your app is not meant to be something overly complex, it simply must be something that your app offers that no other does. While it will certainly help your cause if that “something” entices users to the point of choosing your app over all others, you can still create less impressive advantages that add up in the minds of users. This is ultimately how you develop a loyal base of customers.

 

Conclusion

 

While it may initially seem unusual to create a competitive advantage for your mobile app, however, in actuality, a mobile app is not unlike any other business. Businesses have competitive advantages, and so should your mobile app. Whether it is a reduced selling price while offering the same features as every other app in its market, or simply offering a new feature that no other has, your app will most certainly need a competitive advantage if it wishes to become a top seller. So, if your app currently does not have a competitive advantage, look to the aforementioned tips to find one quickly.

How To Create An App That Sells Itself

As fun as marketing a mobile app can be, creating one that sells itself is much more versatile. And while it may seem like pure luck to be able to create an app that essentially requires zero marketing efforts from your company, doing so can actually be fairly easy to achieve. To help you do so, here are some tips on how to create an app that sells itself.

 

Be Innovative

 

Often times it is the most innovative new apps that bring something enticing to the mobile market, and subsequently make it possible for them to be able to sell themselves. If you take a look at any innovative app that first introduced a function or concept to the mobile market, you will likely also notice that its founding company spent significantly less on its marketing budget compared to most similar apps. For instance, take the Sleep Cycle app. It is the first app to track user sleep patterns and quality by merely using the built-in technology from devices like the iPhone. This app is truly innovative, and consequently requires very little marketing efforts from its designer. Mainly, the app sells itself through word-of-mouth, which may seem like an unnecessary, and perhaps even unrealistic, expectation for an app to have, however, it is certainly something to strive for.

 

It's All In The Name

 

A major part of your mobile app selling itself is in its name. If it is has a boring, plain and unenthusiastic name, then not only will users have no idea what its purpose is, but they most certainly will not be enticed to buy it. For such reason, when naming your mobile app, you should most definitely aim to give it a name that reaches out to users. More specifically, you should give your app a name that makes mobile device users want to investigate its use, which will in turn further their consideration about downloading it. In this regard, the name you give to your mobile app does not necessary even have to make since initially, so long as you eventually explain what its significance is once a prospective user investigates.

 

Make An Awesome App

 

Without question, the most proactive thing you can do to offer an app that sells itself to the market is to create one that people want to use. While some apps remain mediocre but get by with their excellent marketing efforts or stellar sales team, more often than not, it is the apps that are well-crafted and extremely useful that sell themselves. If your goal is to offer such an app to the mobile market, then you should most certainly aim to create a well-designed mobile app.

 

Conclusion

 

Making an app that virtually sells itself sounds like an exceedingly unattainable feat. However, it most definitely is achievable if you work on creating a useful app that anyone with a mobile device will be practically begging to download. What’s more, if you can create such an app that is also innovative compared to the others in its category, then you will increase the app’s natural marketability that much more. Lastly, giving your app a name that is unmistakable in the industry, and subsequently provides an easily identifiable presence in its market, will surely increase its ability to sell itself. In this sense you may also consider creating a separate brand for your app.

Making Your App Unique

Mobile apps are seemingly as abundant as the number of mobile device users in the market. While this may or may not be true, the fact that there are so many of both makes it increasingly difficult to come up with unique apps that no one has ever thought of. Making sure that your mobile app is truly one-of-a-kind can be more difficult than it initially seems. Whether your app is for simple enjoyment, such as a game, or has a more complex nature such as an app geared specifically for the working professional in their daily tasks, you should regardless try to make it unique. While it may seem as though there is little you can do besides come up with a distinctively original idea, there are additional things you can do to make your mobile offering truly unique. To help you do so, here are a couple ideas to consider.

 

Examine Your Competition

 

By examining the competition, you will be able to tell what features that your app can improve upon, and which it should forget all together. Additionally, you will be able to decide how you can bring your own twist to apps that already exist. Subsequently, this will give you the opportunity to make a truly unique offering to the mobile market. Too often apps simply replicate other mobile offerings, and consequently flood the market with repeat apps that no body wants. Not only is this a recipe for disaster for your company, but even if your replicated app is somehow profitable, it still brings nothing new or valuable to the market. If you want to create and offer a truly unique mobile app, you must take every precaution to either improve upon another idea, or come up with an entirely original one of your own.

 

Offering An Entirely Original Idea

 

Perhaps the easiest way to produce a unique app is to come up with an entirely original idea. In terms of ease, coming up with the actual idea may not be the simplest process, but it is easy in terms of alternatively having to sift out duplicate ideas. Additionally, coming up with an original idea for an app is also the only method of guaranteeing that your app is not duplicated in anyway. What’s more, it promises that the only way there will be any other app like yours is if it comes after you made the initial market offering. Throughout the process of creating an app based on an entirely unique idea, you will have the opportunity to entice users along the way with teaser sneak peaks on social media, and perhaps even your website, if applicable. In this way, you will ensure that your idea is documented and the mobile industry knows that your idea was first, in case any other mobile enterprises copy it.

 

Conclusion

 

Offering a truly unique app to the market is very difficult, but assuming your app has a useful function, then you are practically guaranteed sales. Not only do mobile device users love new ideas, but even more, they love new ideas that they can use and that will subsequently benefit their lives. Hopefully the aforementioned process of offering an entirely new idea will lead you to attempt such a mobile offering for your company. Doing so will surely increase the revenue and profitability of your presence in the mobile market.

Leading Your Mobile Enterprise

It is estimated that there are now more mobile devices in the world than there are people. With such a statistic weighing on the minds of leaders of business, the time to capitalize on the popularity of mobile devices has come. As the leader of an enterprise, it falls on you to harness the potential of the mass amount of mobile devices and users in the world, and subsequently appeal your product to them. As an enterprise leader, you are required to wear many hats — it is your job to keep everyone happy, and make sure your app maintains a healthy reputation for your company. Most mobile enterprise executives are natural born leaders, but even the most proficient leader needs to brush up on his or her skills now and then. For those feeling a bit rusty with their leadership skills, here are a few tips to get back on track.

 

Be Charismatic

Being a "Charismatic" is a valuable title for a leader to hold. It is the ultimate sign that you are outgoing and personable with your enterprise. In some ways, natural charisma in your role as a leader is nearly impossible to acquire. In fact, many people believe that charisma is a trait that leaders are simply born with, and cannot learn. With that said, you can certainty make a conscious effort to be charismatic in your everyday actions as a leader of your enterprise. For instance, you can actively check-in with your customers and employees, giving them a personable and outgoing impression. Additionally, you can create a persona for yourself when in the public’s eye. While at industry functions and events you can become the most charismatic version of yourself, even if you aren’t like that in your personal life.

Do Not Micro Manage

Depending on the industry expert, you may find different advice about micro managing your enterprise and its mobile offerings. Some say micro managing as a leader is fine, and even effective, while others say it is ineffective and a waste. Ultimately, the decision is yours, and while there have been plenty of successful micro mangers, such as Apple founder, Steve Jobs, and Starbucks CEO, Howard Schulz, attending to duties that you have hired employees to take care of, can be an incredible waste of your valuable time.

Learn To Delegate

Fending off the urge to micro manage your mobile enterprise is the first step in learning how to delegate tasks to your subordinates. If you can accomplish that, you will automatically have become a more effective leader than many enterprise executives aiming to be successful leaders. Being able to tell subordinates what their job is and how to do it, is essential to your business' success. So, next time you are faced with designing the login interface of your company’s next wildly popular app, give the job to one of your trusted subordinates, but make sure they get you to sign off on it.

Conclusion

Whether you are leading a mobile enterprise with numerous successful mobile applications under its belt, or looking to merely develop a mobile app for your existing business enterprise, being an influential leader for your company is paramount to its success. By developing yourself into a more charismatic leader — learning to delegate tasks instead of micro managing — you will be able to optimize the efficiency of your operations and streamline productivity. While these steps certainly won’t be accomplished overnight, they are meant to be stepping-stones to becoming the leader your company needs.

Does Your App Work In The Field?

Creating apps made for field services is a growing area of the market that is certainly worth exploring. Whether you have actively been involved in this area of the market for the last several years, or you are just now considering offering an app to your customers, and perhaps, employees to use in their field, now is definitely the time to do so. If you do decide to do so, along the way you will undoubtedly need to decide whom you are going to offer your app to — employees or customers, or both.

 

Offering Your Field Service App To Employees

 

In most cases, when a company offers an app for employees to use in the field, it is most likely for mandatory usage. In such case, your company likely will have to offer it for free, as charging employees for something essential to their job is not typical of a successful enterprise. With that said, there is always the possibility that the app may not be essential to the work of your employees and you can subsequently offer it either free, or for a small price. Then, they will be able to decide whether they in fact want to use the app, and if it is even worth the price you are charging for it. For instance, if you own an herbal supplement distributor and create an app for employees to reference all the different supplements your company processes, you may deem this as a mandatory app for employees to have on their company smartphones. At the same time, you may feel that this is a perk and decide to offer the app for a small fee, or for free, but not mandatory. Then, depending on your business, you also have to decide whether you want to offer the app to your customers as well. Ultimately, the choice is yours.

 

Offering A Field Service App To Your Customers

 

Whether your business is assisting other employees with their field services, or you just want to pass on the app that you offer your own employees, doing so may be worth it to you. If you do offer your app to customers just as you do your employees, then you may consider doing so for a price. In other words, if you can profit off of something that you offer to your employees for free, then it may make up for some of the cost associated with having such a complimentary offering. In this may, you may be able to recoup some of those costs. Or, you may want to shine on the expenses and, again, offer it for free, but this time to your customers as well as employees.

 

Conclusion

 

Offering a field service app to your employees and customers, or both, can be a bit complicated, especially if you wish to make a distinction between the two. It is entirely understandable if you want to charge your customers for the app, but not your employees, or vice versa. When making such a decision, it is easiest to do so with an open mind not solely focused on making a profit. Sure you want to recoup as much of the costs associated with the app as possible, however, you also do not want to come across as frugal and desperate to profit off of your own employees.

Network - The Lifeline of Mobility

It takes more than devices and applications to connect people in your mobile enterprise to each other and to the information they need. It takes a medium to connect you to the world of information that your smart device acts as a gateway to. It takes the most invisible yet the most critical component of the ecosystem – the enterprise network. All of your communications, business processes and applications depend on it. Smart devices without access can be gaming consoles or notepads, or even coasters, but an enterprise business tool they do not make. Network forms the backbone of your business communication, and needs to remain robust and reliable in the face of changing business landscape, increasing business demands and evolving security risks.

 

What is Network Integration?

 

Network integration is quite simply, the combination of two or more networks. It is the ability to use or combine data from multiple sources while maintaining the integrity and reliability of the data. Enterprise LANs are home to the target data for most user requirements, while the access mechanism, their devices, are on either provider networks or wi-fi. The ability to allow the data and the user to interact without compromising the security of the enterprise or the experience of the user is the key to successful network integration.

 

Since the network plays a crucial role in determining the success of a business, it should deliver high performance and secured and continued access. In today’s dynamic environment, communication networks are key elements to define the success of a business. While developers are concentrating on applications & devices, it is the network of your enterprise that will enable clients and employees to take advantage of the innovations done in IT segment.

 

Networks determine the user experience as much as the application performance. A high-latency network can make users feel the pinch in terms of delays and hung apps. Therefore, it is critical to tune your LAN and last mile (if under your control) to optimize it according to your app data flow parameters.

 

Security is another important aspect of data in motion. What type of data flows between the device and the datacenter, and gets stored in the device determines the type of security that is required. Also, the vertical under which the enterprise falls determines the compliance, and therefore, security requirements. Is the data encrypted? What kind og encryption? What strength? All these factors impact the transfer over the air. Too many security blockades reduce the performance, since extra information needs to be transferred with the data (heads, security bits etc.).

 

The key is to integrate and optimize the network without compromising on security essentials. Network integration services require careful planning, designing, implementation, and management. There are various stages of network integration and successful completion of each phase plays a vital role in seamless performance of the network. This is the reason professional help is sought by enterprises when designing their networks for integration to mobile apps.

 

 How do Network integration services (NIS) help?

 

If done by experienced resources, with a planned approach, NIS can provide a multitude of benefits.

Network design for adaptability to transient needs

• Planned upgrades, expansions and configurations with zero or near-zero downtime
• Resilient architecture that is fault tolerant and high performing
• Cost optimization and efficiency gains
• Better project execution through planned deliverables and on-time execution
• Risk reduction
• Improved service delivery and controls the cost of network monitoring and management

mHealth - Mobile Apps Changing Healthcare

Mobile devices are revolutionizing the way patients are engaged by the healthcare system.

 

The mobile market for health apps are expected to increase fourfold to $400 million by 2016, according to ABI Research. This plethora of mobile healthcare apps springing up on phones shows that many doctors and healthcare companies know the value of helping patients and maintain their record.

 

The impact of this shift on the healthcare system and how consumers use and act on health information should not be underestimated.

 

The US Department of Health and Human Services calls it “mHealth.” It denotes a mobile mechanism for monitoring and improving the health of the patients, and the health services and research.

 

5 ways in which these smart phone apps can transform the healthcare

 

1. Medication Refills using Mobile Prescription: Major pharmacies like Walgreens are now offering options for refilling prescriptions without having to visit them. The “reply to refill” email allows the user to refill multiple prescriptions, select which pharmacy those prescriptions should be filled at and what time they should be filled by, and even have them shipped from a saved account.
2. Patient Tools to Manage Their Own Health: Imagine if all the information you needed for a safe and healthy recovery were handed to you on an app. provider. Apps can remind you to take pills, monitor side effects and transfer the knowledge to your provider. This would be a huge advance for the patient’s safety. In the future, These apps will schedule appointments, update you the doctor’s status, if he is   running late, help monitor medications’ side effects, and help you follow your care plan accurately. These changes will engage patients with their health and healthcare in new ways.
3. Self-Monitoring Apps: For patients who do not require constant observation and are not in any risk, there are self monitoring applications available which allow them to take control of their own health. They can know physiological metrics like heart rate, blood pressure, weight, muscle tension, BMI, pule etc. they can even set targets and work towards achieving them. This gives them satisfaction and visible rewards for maintaining their own health.
4. Tools to Reduce Medical Fraud: These apps have the ability to track people and transactions in space and time. So, it is simple. When you scan your Medicare card at a pharmacy, an app would allow Medicare to instantly trace that transaction. This saves you a lot of fretting and fuming trying to figure out your expenses, and keeps your information safe.
5. Apps to Reduce Complexity Healthcare is a complex system, and the complexity is at times a deterrent to patient engagement. There are long waits, queues, non-transparent cost and quality to name a few challenges that the convalescent people face when dealing with the healthcare industry. A lot of these challenges are not necessary, and many can be mitigated using simple techniques. For e.g., if you know the number of patients waiting ahead of you in a doctor’s office where you are scheduled for a visit on your mobile, you can manage your time better, and save the wait in the reception area. If your smartphone remembers your appointments, medication times, and the medication levels and provides you timely reminders, your life will definitely become much easier.  Further, using geo location services, you can locate the nearest pharmacy, place an order containing your insurance information, and give you a scheduled pick up time at the click of a button.

Develop the Right Financial Apps

Smartphones have secured a strong place in our lives. We are living in a world where the majority of our daily chores are completely taken care of by our mobile devices. There is an app for almost everything. These apps are becoming a north star for millions of Americans who use them to navigate through life-reading emails, reading a book, playing games, listening to songs, shopping, learning and lots more. It is unbelievable to see how things have become just a fingertip away. So it’s no wonder that our phones have become the primary way we choose to manage our money.

 

We at Copper Mobile can help businesses in creating financial mobile applications which can be used for

 

• Mobile Banking: The power of managing your account without ever having to visit your bank through a mobile interface. Check your balance, transfer funds, pay bills, configure alerts for credits / debits, click – scan – upload checks all these activities accomplished through your mobile device, 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, even on public holidays with mobile banking apps.
• Bill Management: Bill management application is a smart and simple way to keep a track of your bills. Copper Mobile offers advanced bill management solutions that will enable you to keep a track of you pending bill payments and due dates, set reminders, schedule a schedule auto debits so that you don’t miss any payment date, View details of your account, anytime and anywhere.
• Insurance Services: Policy control, account management, claims submission, tracking and receipt, payment of premium  and adding new items under your account; all these and more are actions you want mobilized with insurance apps. Insurance companies recognize the need of the same, and are fast upgrading their internal systems to integrate with the mobility interfaces.

 

So, whether you are looking for an iPhone application or an app that works on cross-platforms, Copper Mobile can help your business in developing highly functional and flawless mobile financial apps.

Enterprise Mobility – Size Does Not Matter

A common myth about enterprise mobility is that it is for the big guys. It is usual for small organizations to ignore it without having even evaluated its business case. This leads to many missed opportunities and dissatisfaction among customers and employees alike. People use mobility in their personal lives, and are now demanding it in their professional lives as well. Organizations that fail to take notice and act on this changing behavior stand to lose their standing among them. Enterprise mobility has many use cases, and most of them are irrespective of the size and vertical in which they operate.

1. Productivity: Simple tasks like email, chat, document sharing and collaboration can be made many times more effective and efficient through mobilization. Teams that can communicate and collaborate on the go are far more productive than the ones who are chained to their desks for doing the same tasks. Most of the times, it is just about a message that needs to be passed along, or an update to be sent, or an approval received. If the user has to stop to find a wireless enabled area and use his / her laptop in order to accomplish these uncomplicated tasks, we have a major efficiency loss. Mobilifying these mundane chores can benefit an organization irrespective of their size.
2. Workload Management: Managing teams that are geographically distributed, or even at different points in the same city is a daunting task if you need to have everyone working through a personal computer. Task assignments, updates, and executions in this model lead to wastage of time, since people need to return to their desks to accomplish their jobs. This is also a deterrent to the work-from-home  model, which is a big cost saver especially for smaller organizations who cannot set up an office in every city they want to operate in. Imagine a start up that wants to sell in 20 states. If they need to rent office space for every one of them, just to seat a sales guy, any hopes for profitability are lost.
3. Field Services: Any organization that has a field operation team needs to track and manage them. They need to be provided with customer information and location while on the road, and the distribution of jobs also depends on the physical location of the resources. It is not exactly elegant trying to manipulate a laptop while driving. Also, the not all field service staff is necessarily high skill candidates. Therefore, it is best to use a medium they are familiar with – their smartphones. Allowing the Field Services teams access to customer data and job queues on their smartphones makes them efficient, and saves the company money they would have spent on personal computers or handhelds.
4. Inventory / Asset Management: Asset Management is a complex process. It includes the cradle to grave lifecycle for all things important to you. This means planning / requesting, ordering, receiving / stocking, building / configuring, deploying, retiring, and disposal of assets are all in there. Even when the Asset Management process is defined, documented and followed, sifting through thousands of records while chained to your desk becomes a challenge. That is where mobility comes into the picture. If you have an Asset Management application on your smartphone or tablet, you can manage your assets on the go, through an intuitive and helpful interface.

These are but a few use cases of mobility which an enterprise of any size can benefit from. Typically, the tangible and intangible benefits of mobility more than justify the cost of mobile application development, and provide a highly positive ROI. That’s the reason companies of all sizes and from different walks of trade are embracing the M-life world over. When will you?

Dallas Based Copper Mobile Honored with Directorship Award

Dennis Cagan, Chairman of the Board, Copper Mobile Enterprise Solutions has been honored for his directorship achievements.

 

The award program, which is in association with the National Association of Corporate Directors and sponsored by Ernst & Young, Bank of America and Haynes and Boone, honors directors from Dallas- based nonprofits, as well as public and private companies.

 

The Dallas Business Journal and an independent panel of judges selected 12 individual directors, including Dennis Cagan as the 2013 Outstanding Directors of North Texas Award.

 

With an experience of having done business in 35 countries, Dennis is a successful entrepreneur with many great achievements to his name. He was the founder of David Jamison Carlyle Corp., which he turned into one of the largest distributors of computer peripherals in the USA. He currently serves as a director on the boards of five organizations, including Copper Mobile.

 

Copper Mobile, one of the leading mobile app development companies, provides best-in-class solutions for many verticals like financial services, government, field services, Hi-Tech, and Healthcare Mobility Solutions and is excited to have received this honor.

Cloud and Mobility – A Great Symbiosis

Two of the most disruptive changes afoot in the technology landscape today are cloud and mobility. Both of them are omnipresent, all pervasive, and heavily abused. A few special commonalities between the two are noteworthy. Firstly, both are having a significant impact on both the consumer and the enterprise segments. Secondly, they both are increasingly becoming interdependent on the services provided by each other.

 

The confluence of these two steams of technology advancement is creating an ocean of possibilities for the users. These opportunities are being leveraged by businesses worldwide for creating offerings around them, or leveraging them for the furtherance of their respective corporate agendas. This has been made possible by some inter-usable features of cloud and mobility.

 

Cloud is essentially time-share

 

For those of you who went to work in the 80s would remember the time-share machines, which were too expensive (also, too big) to own, and therefore, were leased out for quanta of time. Today, the computers have shrunk in size and cost considerably, with a lot of processing power. However, the workloads have also increased manifold.

 

When it comes to smart devices, it is not possible to store all the data that is required for your usage on the same device. Just think if you needed to store all the pictures and videos you have ever taken on your smartphone. 64 Gigs will start to look very small very soon. But what about the time when you want to show your friends the antics of your 2-year-old daughter? It then becomes imperative to call upon the prowess of the global time-share – The Cloud. You can store your data on the cloud, and access it whenever, wherever you need it.

 

Enterprises use this a lot for the people who need to be out in the field, where the action is. There is not enough bandwidth in the world to store local copies of corporate data on each individual device (if you can fit it there), and keep each and every one of them synced real-time. That’s where the Ether is the perfect choice.

 

Wireless networks are faster than ever

 

We have 3 options when deploying applications and data – we do it locally, or over a computer network (which is still local to the network), or we do it in the Ether (C-word). Earlier, the third mechanism was not preferred because of accessibility issues caused by slow networks and inadequate bandwidth. Today, with the evolution of 4G LTE, the wireless networks are far faster and reliable than the broadband from 2 years ago. This solves the connectivity conundrum, allowing the users to enjoy the benefits of using the benefits of the cloud on their mobile devices.

 

Communication and collaboration

 

The most important currency in today’s world is information. Organizations are fixated on the information that is generated, manipulated, stored and used by the users (both customers and employees) on a day-to-day basis. Enterprise unified communication and collaboration (UCC) platforms integrate different sources of this information into a single, cross-leveraged unit. However, when we talk about mobile UCC, there are many interoperability challenges. Some of these challenges have been addressed in the PaaS and SaaS world where the APIs, connectors and native integrations are readily available.

 

The evolution of mobility and cloud certainly present many possibilities for new services and improvement of existing offerings. If used wisely, they can lead to a solid topline and bottomline impact.

Enterprise Mobility Consulting and App Strategizing

Mobile phones were earlier considered as the medium of communication have now become an integral part of our lives. From making calls to accessing social networking sites and doing online shopping, we rely on smartphones for most of our needs.

 

One of the most important factors for this change is mobile application. They have changed the way we use smartphones and tablets. Applications are always accessible and help us in staying connected, irrespective of location barrier.

 

Mobile applications are also getting popular amongst enterprises. Businesses are looking for smart ways to work and going mobile is one of their most preferred approaches.

 

Not every organization has the team of most experienced IT individuals and developers. Therefore, it might be a daunting task for companies to create and implement a mobile strategy at work.

 

Mobility consulting is the solution to all the mobilizing worries of enterprises. Enterprises planning to become a part of the app world can seek help of mobility consultants to create a robust application that is beneficial in terms of internal management and client support.

 

A mobility consulting company will help you in determining the best mobile solution that fits your business model. It is the job of the consultants to identify your business needs, strategize about the development process, calculate the risks involved, and successfully implement the solution.

 

Hiring a Mobility Consultant:

Things to Consider

 

• The success of mobile applications has fascinated many to get into the business of development. Therefore, it is important for you to consider the relevant experience of a consulting firm before hiring it for work.
• There are enterprise mobility firm that offer one-stop-solution to clients. Instead of hiring a consultant, developer, and designer separately, it is a good idea to get in touch with a mobility consultant who offers complete solutions. This will result in better co-ordination and more cost-effective mobility solution.

 

Other than finding a mobility consultant, it is necessary for enterprises to have the right mobility strategy. The right mobile application strategy will help you in successfully accomplishing the project and deriving the desired objectives. There are certain things a company must consider in creating a mobile strategy:

 

• When it comes to choosing between native or mobile web applications, enterprises should consider pros and cons of both. Native apps are either device or OS specific and use some internal features of the device. Mobile web apps on the other hand support cross-platforms.
• If maximum exposure or consumer reach is what you are aiming at with the enterprise application, opt for mobile web solution.
• Enterprises have to decide if they want an application for the internal purpose or to improve the customer reach. Consumer-centric applications are a trend these days as they lead to better branding, marketing, and revenue generation. However, for more organized and managed work environment, businesses are also opting for an internal mobile application that is accessible to all the employees.
• Data infringement is a major concern of enterprises. It is necessary for the IT department to figure out the security issues or the possible ways of data theft. Once, we are well-versed with the hurdles, it gets easier for developers to create a robust application that would be tested on various security parameters.

 

Mobility consulting and strategizing will have a great impact on the growth of an enterprise. Therefore, businesses are suggested to go through each process carefully before starting the mobile application development process.

Mobility is a Boon to Field Services Industry

In an enterprise, two teams are the most mobile – sales teams and field services (FS) teams. While the former are primarily visiting boardrooms and conferences, the latter have the charter of being on the go almost the entire day, meeting customers’ end users and solving their problems. Be it business operational field services or technology desk side support, the FS teams have the biggest impact on customer satisfaction (CSAT). Therefore, enabling them to do their jobs better is a mission critical. Traditionally, these teams have been equipped with bulky handheld devices which are cumbersome, and have limited functionality. Enterprise mobility has changed that, and today the tools of the trade for the hands-and-feet crowd reside within their smartphones / tablets.

 

Enabling the resources on the ground to use their smartphones for work related tasks has many advantages. Firstly, they do not have to carry brick sized, cumbersome devices. Secondly, doing away with handhelds saves a lot of money in purchase and maintenance of the same. Cost is further saved because the enterprises do not need backend software and infrastructure to pull data or charge those monsters. Also, smart devices are better connected (through cellular or wi-fi networks), and the employees do not have to go through a learning curve to use them.  Lastly, the use cases for a smartphone / tablet are virtually unlimited, empowering the FS resources to access all relevant information anytime, anywhere.

 

Due to these advantages, enterprises are investing in field services mobile apps that provide very useful functionalities.

 

Work order management: These applications let the managers allocate work efficiently, and control and monitor its execution closely. From a central console, a manager can identify the resources closest to the requirement through geo location services, and assign the work to them. The agents on the ground get a notification with all the relevant details like location, nature of the work, the priority and SLA. They can then accept the work order and proceed to the location. Once done, they can update the work order with the outcome, and the manager sees the same immediately.

 

Invoice Management: Keeping a track of invoices and payments can be a headache when you have hundreds of employees on the field involved in the transactions. As an FS organization, if you have to physically collect and input all the receipts, it becomes a nightmare, and has immense potential for human error. Using a mobile app to issue invoices and receive payments, with the ability to process credit cards can greatly reduce the effort required for this process and the potential for errors.

 

GPS tracking: How many times does the help desk receive a call from an irate customer saying “I am still waiting for your person to reach here”. The standard response is “He should be there soon”. Imagine a world where the helpdesk agent can tell the customer “Sir, he is 2.1 miles from your location. As per the traffic data, he should reach there in approximately 7 minutes.” Tracking your resources and knowing here they are at all times gives your business a huge efficiency boost. Not just people, tracking assets and vehicles on the move also help security and CSAT. ‘Knowing’ is the first step towards improving, and GPS tracking systems keep you in the know.

 

These are but a few use cases for mobility in field services. Copper Mobile can help you in connecting with your field staff like never before with our mobile field service app. We design customized applications for smart devices such as mobile phones and tablets, which can be accessed from anywhere across the globe.

Does Your App Bring Out The Best In Its Device?

Every now and then an app comes out that truly mesmerizes the market in a way that users and industry experts alike didn’t even know was possible. These remarkable apps take the capabilities of a device, and through the creation of an innovative new app, absolutely bring out the best in the device it is housed on. While it is certainty no easy task, if you can come up with an original idea for an app that uses a device in a way most people had no idea was possible, your enterprise will practically be guaranteed profitability.

 

The Idea

 

Thinking up an innovative app idea that uses a mobile device in a new way is extremely difficult. It often seems as through developers have either already thought of all the good ideas, or inspiration is simply impossible to find. With that said, there are many examples of genius apps that have been created in the face of lackluster inspiration and a market full of creative app offerings. Take, for example, the Sleep Cycle app. It is an app that cleverly uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to measure sleep patterns and quality based on the user’s movements while asleep. This is a truly remarkable idea that uses the capabilities of the iPhone to its advantage. Without the iPhone’s accelerometer, the Sleep Cycle app simply would not exist and the idea of an app that gives users feedback on their sleep patterns would remain a thought still in the incubation phase of someone’s mind. This sort of symbiotic relationship between app and device — bringing out the best in the device while introducing an innovative new idea — is what makes the combination so profitable.

 

There are two basic ways to come up with such an innovative idea. You can either start by considering the capabilities of a device you wish to house your app on, or you can think of a brilliant idea first and worry about a device’s capabilities later. Typically, it is easier to base your app idea off the capabilities of the device you are working with. This way when you actually do come up with a brilliant idea for your app, you know for a fact that it will find fruition. For instance, the mobile market now has a bunch of flashlight apps that use the camera light on various mobile phones as a static bright light to use in the dark. Five years ago, if someone had thought of the idea to create an app that works as a flashlight, they probably would have hit a dead end. Back then most smartphones did not feature a camera light built into the design. However, now that most smartphones have such a feature, the idea has found tremendous success with users in the mobile market.

 

Conclusion

 

Coming up with the next brilliant idea for an app is certainly not an easy undertaking. Inspiration can be scarce and motivation can dwindle, as the market appears to already have an endless array of stellar apps. However, if you first start with the capabilities of a device, such as the iPhone, you will undoubtedly be able to find a feature that no other app has capitalized on, turning its use and your brilliant idea into an innovative new mobile offering for the market to enjoy. All app ideas start from somewhere and a mobile device is about as good a starting place as its gets.

 

Copper Mobile helps enterprises in developing new ideas and strategising their mobile needs and create innovative products for mobility solutions

Enterprise App Stores - All Grown Up

As per recent Gartner report, by 2017, a quarter of all enterprises will have their own app stores for the employees. The primary cause for this is the rapid adoption of mobile technology by the employees and customers alike. With mobile adoption comes the need for apps, and with need for apps comes the need to securely distribute them. Increasingly, businesses are finding consumer mobile app stores inadequate for distribution of enterprise applications. These storefronts offer little in the way of security, vetting and control. Distribution-especially to large work forces-is cumbersome. Enter the enterprise App store.

 

There are many players providing mobile enterprise app stores, the latest big name to enter being SAP. Verizon also provides its white-labeled corporate app store, which comes with your company’s logo and color scheme. This industry will continue morphing as vendors, service providers and the businesses themselves explore various approaches. At the end of the day, of course, no single formula will emerge. Rather, different types of enterprise-focused app stores-some of them as simple as areas set aside at the consumer-oriented app stores-will establish themselves.

 

Options:

 

There are essentially 2 categories of app stores – One for the executives and CXOs, and another for the remaining employees. In the second category, there are 3 methods of implementation – Firstly, there are those that are located within the consumer marketplaces, such as Google Play and Apple's App Store; Second type of app stores that aggregate enterprise applications from these stores and offer them to the corporate world; and, finally, there are enterprise stores that offer their own applications.

 

Features:

 

To be successful, enterprise application distribution systems should have some necessary characteristics.

 

1. Access Control – This is an important feature. The access needs to be controlled for different profile of users. For e.g. the finance department people should not have access to salesforce.com app. This may require integration with the active directory or HRMS.

 

2. Registration – As important it is to allow access based on user profiles, for enhanced security, it is equally important to give access to only known devices. The registration of devices ensures that only the authorized devices are allowed to use the app store.

 

3. Security – VPN-only access and intense application testing are some of the important features which ensure the users can be sure of the application that they download, and the enterprise is certain that only bona fide devices and users get access.

 

4. Centralized control – Since the enterprise marketplace has to be closely monitored and regulated, it is imperative that they be managed well. In order to reduce the management complexity, there should be a centralized management console for the same, where IT can upload, approve, or reject applications.

 

5. Cross-platform compatibility – Since the device and OS types in the enterprise are generally disparate, it is important that the download options are compatible with the devices.  Ideally, the app store should provide employees with the choice to download apps either directly via the enterprise app marketplace or via their mobile Web browser.

 

6. App updates – Organizations change. Policies change. Functionalities change. Therefore, it is imperative that the apps will also change. The user must be provided notifications and access to app updates, upgrades, security patches and so on. Supporting OTA or over-the-air updates enables users to easily apply these updates on their devices, without having to spend unnecessary time and effort.

Mobile Apps: Challenges Faced by the Enterprise

Mobility offers tremendous business growth opportunities to a business and its incorporation in enterprises is certainly on the rise, but this does not rule out the challenges that businesses still face when a new technology has to be adopted. Apart from the standard challenges faced during adoption of a new technology platform, mobility presents its own unique challenges.

 

• Complexity and Cost: Unlike the traditional technology world dominated by windows / mac OS, going mobile means grappling with seemingly innumerable device-OS combinations, with even more entering the fray every day. Developing for and managing such a complex landscape means higher development and management costs. Oftentimes, businesses fail to justify the cost against the ROI for mobility, which leads to mobility projects being shelved. There is some reprieve in the cross-platform apps, but it will be some time till they become viable business solutions.
• Quality of the Application: Mobile users are now used to high quality apps, which deliver on both the design and the content front. User interface and performance are the two key factors for engaging the end user. The UI has to be designed keeping the end user in mind while the performance has to meet the enterprise guidelines while being constrained by the project budget.
• Time to Market: Variety of mobile platforms requires the adjustment of the code according to the syntax of the OS, which it supports and executes for operations. This process increases the time of development of enterprise software and hinders the approach of businesses to deliver the product in shortest possible time.
• Back-End Integration: A B2C app should ideally integrate seamlessly with back-end databases and services to deliver content. However, this is easier said than done. The business critical, legacy systems existing within the enterprise were not designed to integrate with mobile interfaces. Existing systems may have to be modified to work together with the mobile apps. Programmable interfaces have to be coded so that these back-end services can talk with apps. This may require the re-writing of the code of server for each application, such re-writing may create issues of communication with the existing systems. In short, going mobile may end up disrupting existing integrations / functionalities, which is of course, not acceptable.
• Software Security: For some crucial applications related to finance or mobile software dealing with corporate data such as CRM, ERP, there is a strong need to secure the app at each level of code. In the haste to launch the app, developers sometimes overlook the security aspects. Any data manipulation or intrusion may cause serious damage to the organization and so developers need to emphasize on embedding the security features of the OS or hard code by themselves.

 

The transformation phase in the easy step to undertake for enterprises, but it is the long term planning, that utilizes all of the resources and puts various tasks to challenge in the overall work-flow. Delivering on these focus areas requires a rethink of the current strategies and creation of new products that would influence the way users interact with enterprise assets.

 

Copper Mobile with its strong domain knowledge and technical expertise, can help your enterprise get the power of mobility. Let us take charge of the Enterprise Application solution, you are looking for and we will ensure that you receive the right kind of product that your organization requires.

Why Enterprise Social Initiatives Fail

In a recent report published by Gartner, 80% of the social initiatives will not fulfill their intended targets by 2015. This, by the same Gartner, that said that the future of enterprise depended on social strategy that would effectively tap the “collective genius” of employees and customers. So does the new report mean they are backpedaling? Not really.

 

The reason most social initiatives will end up in less than projected success is that most enterprises dive headlong into the social projects without taking care of some core issues critical to their success. There are multiple challenges that plague the uptake and success of such endeavors, which if not addressed in the strategy itself, can derail them from the path to success.

 

Focus on People, Not Tool

 

When enterprises plan for collaboration enablement, the focus is on the content and the mechanism of supporting it rather than the real players in the arena, the people. Project teams deliberate for moths trying to decide the ‘best’ social platform out there and the teams that will implement it, while no one is really thinking about how to engage the employees in the collaborative efforts. This leaves them with an expensive, well-implemented (if so) tool, which gathers dust as no one uses it.

 

Team Structure

 

Unlike external social platforms, which seem take a life of their own, corporate collaboration efforts need to be constantly monitored, advertised, supported, and evolved as time progresses. To address this, they require a defined team that owns and manages them. Roles like a collaboration manager, or an innovation architect should be defined to lead this team into the future. Another important component here is the ranking of the participants based on their contributions.

 

Training and Enablement

 

Most enterprise project plans for information management and distribution leave out the most critical part of the exercise – end user training. Give a user, who is unmotivated in the first place, a tool that he does not understand, and you can bid goodbye to its success. There are multiple training options available to the management – classroom based training, computer based live training, computer based recorded sessions, training presentations, and user manuals. Even after this, if the employees do not get trained, there is some problem.

 

Incentives and Engagement

 

Most people’s approach towards enterprise social platforms is that they have “better things to do”. The primary reason for this is that they do not feel incented to contribute. Another reason is that the exercise of contribution is not engaging enough, and people who do contribute, stop doing so after a few participations.This is where the team managing the social initiative should come up with creative incentive programs for the contributors. Some examples of the same are giving badges or honors, promoting the users within the tool to hold cool titles, having a physical award ceremony for top contributors, or, if your workforce allows it, associating KRA metrics with it. To make the employees covet participation, the community may be started as ‘by invitation only’. Once this core group reaches a certain critical mass of activity, you can open it up, and add more people.

 

Technology Does Matter

 

Finally, even though not the top priority, the importance of choosing the right collaboration platform can’t be denied. The interfaces should be simple and intuitive, the platform secure, and manageable. The cost of implementation, integration and support of the same should not be too high to be prohibitive.

 

The Verdict

 

While it is true that the success of the social initiatives in place or being implemented is questionable, it is also true that they are the future. By reworking their strategy, and paying heed to sound advice, companies can prepare for success in the world where collaboration rules that is inevitable.

 

Copper Mobile is an app development company with headquarters in Dallas. The firm is one of the top iPhone application development firms and mobile application development companies in Dallas

Demystifying the Cloud

It is hard these days to pick up a technology magazine or to read an IT blog without coming across reference to “the cloud”. From novices to pundits, everyone is talking about the cloud. The problem is not everyone agrees on what cloud is, or what its impact is on the modern IT landscape.

 

Blind Man’s Elephant?

 

Cloud computing today can be best described as a blind man’s elephant. The perception, understanding and reality of Cloud depend on who is selling it, and who is buying it.

 

This confused state of affairs is further aggravated by the vendors in the IT marketplace. Today, everyone from a hardware vendor to a software product company to a services organization call what they sell "Cloud".

 

The customers are not far behind in escalating the situation. Driven by the pressure from the business to invest in cloud, IT organizations have taken to calling their existing execution models as Cloud.

 

Due to all this focus on wordplay, everything from managed services to hardware lease models, to virtualized infrastructure, to innovative sourcing / financial models today are referred to as "Cloud".

 

A Part vs the Whole

 

Almost every time a customer talks about needing a "Cloud" model, they are referring to a 'feature' that cloud provides, and which can generally be easily achieved within their existing landscape.

 

For e.g., when a customer says that he wants cloud to take the assets off his books, he is looking for an OPEX vs. a CAPEX. This can be done through asset leasing / IaaS providers. Similarly, when customers ask for speed of provisioning / asset reclaim, the same can easily be achieved through higher virtualization and some automation tools.

 

True, cloud provides features like scalability, self-service, elasticity, utility / usage based pricing, agility, better resource utilization, code movement and metering among many others, but any one (or more) of these features in a solution do not a cloud make. High degree of virtualization is NOT cloud. Paying for a server over a period of time instead of upfront is NOT cloud. Hosted, managed services is NOT cloud. Pay-per-use is NOT cloud. And simply attaching ‘as a service(aaS)’ behind a traditional service is most certainly NOT cloud.

 

Defining Cloud

 

In simple English, cloud refers to technology delivery framework where the collective capacity of multiple IT components like Servers, Storage, Network devices etc. is made available to the user(s) on a per unit usage basis over the internet.

 

A true "Cloud" model is architecturally different from traditional IT landscape, and often has its own development and management platforms. There are primarily 3 flavors of cloud available today, and they can be viewed in a simple hierarchical model of Infrastructure, OS + Development platform and Application:

 

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): OS down capacity provided in utility model

Platform as a service (PaaS): Dev platform down capacity provided in utility model

Software as a service (SaaS): Application down capacity provided in utility model

 

These 3 flavors can be deployed either in a large, sophisticated datacenter owned by a single organization, and shared among multiple customers, or in the datacenter of an enterprise and used by only the people in the same organization. The first model is known as a Public Cloud while the second is known as a Private Cloud.

 

Final Word:

 

It is important to understand that the cloud computing industry represents a large ecosystem of many models, vendors, and market niches. This definition attempts to encompass all of the various cloud approaches. Further, Cloud computing is still an evolving paradigm. Its definitions use cases, underlying technologies, issues, risks, and benefits will be refined in a spirited debate by the public and private sectors. These definitions, attributes, and characteristics will evolve and change over time.

 

Copper Mobile is a mobile application development firm, with headquarters in Dallas, Texas. The company has made its niche as one of top iPhone app developers in Dallas and mobile application companies in Noida

 

 

Is Google Play as Popular as the App Store?

For the past five years, Apple’s App Store has ruled the mobile market in terms of the variety of applications available and the number of users visiting the store for downloading the apps. Apple, known as the pioneer of the modern mobile application market, has been responsible for making smartphone apps popular among the masses and creating a whole new unit of the IT industry. But if the current market reports are to be believed, Apple may no longer be at the helm after the emergence of Google Play.

 

In a report published by Bloomberg Businessweek, it has been stated that Apple Inc is gradually losing its numero uno position and popularity to smartphone apps manufactured by Google Inc. The report says that while the sales of Android apps from Google Play doubled in this fourth quarter, the revenue generated by iOS app sales from the App Store climbed by only 20 percent.

 

But has Google been successful enough to surpass the popularity of even the App Store? According to most mobile analysts, the best mobile companies of the world and the most influential enterprises still prefer to use iOS mobile applications as opposed to Android apps. Though the revenue generated from software sales at the Google Play is rising steadily, it is considerably behind the mobile revolution started by Apple’s App Store. However, it would only be fair to say that the rate of growth of Android app usage has been so high that it has led to the rising popularity of Google Play in the app economy. At the last count taken in October 2012, both the App Store and Google Play hosted 700,000 apps that were also available for sale or download. With iOS mobile applications still generating at least 3.5 times more revenue when compared with Android apps, there is little doubt about the fact that Apple has its niche audience and Google Play is yet to catch up to the popularity of the App Store.

 

Copper Mobile is a well known mobile app developer firm with its headquarters in Dallas, US. With its strong domain knowledge and technical expertise of mobile application developers, Coopper Mobile helps enterprises in getting the power of mobility.