Choose Your Mobility Ecosystem Wisely

By Author: Susan Smith
Total Articles: 132
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In order to maximize ROI of your mobility initiative, you must carefully choose the ecosystem that will provide the end user with the best possible experience, from discovery, to download and install to the actual usage. While ecosystem diversity provides a multitude of options when it comes to app development, it can also lead to confusion and, in turn, poor choices that can be disastrous for your mobility campaign. Determining the right mobile ecosystem for tour enterprise requires careful consideration of the functional requirements of your product, realistic determination of its target audience and deliberate weighing of the various distribution/monetization options.

Keeping in mind the end objective of reaching and satisfying the largest number of users possible, there are several important questions that you should consider in making your choice.

What will the application do? This will always remain the first question.

App stores generally feature more than a dozen mobile application categories such as news, entertainment, sports, and business, but it is more helpful to define ...
... your application by functionality.

* Content rich apps like Games, Music, Books, Photos, and Videos etc.
* Information only apps like News, Search Tools, and Directories etc.
* Location based apps like Maps, Guides etc.
* Productivity apps like Organization Tools
* Social apps like Social Networks and Social Directories

A single mobile application may offer more than one functionality from the list above. However, categorization, even a broad one, helps narrow down the technical specs and predict the complexity. This further helps choose the devices and platforms most amenable for the end product.

For e.g., high-resolution graphics are suited for larger screens of the tablet, and Apple products do better in this arena. Similarly, if Flash is a requirement, then Apple is best left out of the picture.

Once the functional, technical, and UI specs have been nailed, some ecosystem choices get ruled out. The next round of elimination involves the user community.

Who is it for?

While the functional specifications help decide the potential user community that will subscribe to your app, there are other important factors that need to be considered like the established usage patterns of mobile device owners. This includes demographic data such as the age, income, location, lifestyle and employment attributes of the intended audience.

iOS and the Android, being the most popular platforms are the best for non-business, mass market apps.If you are looking to target the business community, who would like constant Internet access and other features on their phones, Blackberry may be a wiser choice. Again, it depends on what is the daily driver for most of your consumers.

For corporations and large enterprises it must be determined whether the application is intended for internal (enterprise) or external (marketplace) usage, or both. One must also consider whether the application is intended for business-to-business interactions or business to client interactions. Again, the customer behavior and their smart device of choice determine the choice of the platform.

How to generate revenue?

So you have the requirements, and you also know which platform your quarry spent their money on. If you are not one of the few philanthropic organizations, you probably want to make some money from your endeavors. Therefore, you must now consider the distribution and monetization goals that spurred you into action in the first place. The decision is based on the two important questions – What is the app worth to the user (NOT what you want him to pay)? & How will the user get access to the app (whether through the platform marketplace or through a private store)?

Once the three questions have been thoroughly debated and discussed, the choice of the ecosystem(s) should be a fairly easy one.

The author is associated with, Copper Mobile, a well known mobile app developer, iPhone application development Dallas and iPad app development Dallas firm