We have all been reading Alpha's blog post about "The mobile app gap". That is, you should have. It is always good to keep up with things like how your software provider is thinking about things. Alpha seems to think that there is a "mobile app gap" and from that reasoning follows the understanding that 'the gap needs to be filled'. The question of course is whether "the gap" really exists and if yes, to which extend.
Is this yet again another "Y2K"-type bug? Something everybody raves about and panics about. Something that took millions of dollars of investments but in the end turned out to be just a very minor problem?
Mobile solutions are needed if they fulfill a need and can render a sound return on investment. Furthermore, the climate of investment needs to be up to the challenge. Looking at the crisis in many western countries, that to begin with does not seem to be the case. According to UNCTAD reports (UNCTAD World Investment Report 2012), UNCTAD estimates that the global FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) will increase only moderately in 2012 and warns for the fragility of the World Economy with growth still tempered by the debt crisis and further financial market volatility which will have an impact on the flows. This even matters more for the developed countries who's growth rate is even smaller then the developing and transition economies show. So, the financial climate for investments is most certainly not bright, and in such a situation companies tend to make conservative priority decisions on investment needs. Is it really to be expected that companies will engage the supposed "mobile gap" with large investments and great elan? Or is it rather to be expected that most will sit on their current systems and look at what competition will do first?
Mobile solutions have their strengths and weaknesses like any other IT solution. There will doubtlessly be an added value for some types of functionality, aimed at specific types of users. The examples of those market niches have been given more then once and I think those examples are all valid. The big question is, whether that "added value" is large enough in terms of market size to speak of a "gap". At this moment, I can't see that. Sure, there is a market, and there will be a revenue for some who engage into this market with success. But if we are supposed to believe that this market share will be huge or even significant so there will be room for all of us to successfully make a living it it I can't follow that reasoning. Nothing in the market points towards that idea. Of course, suppliers that are directly connected with this market will do their very best to promote their products and make investment in their products as interesting as possible. That is to be expected. Often making use of individuals or organizations who "predict" certain economic developments. Only very very few of them however predicted the financial mortgage crisis to grow to an almost worldwide scale, affecting almost every large and small economy in the world. If they were not even able to predict the negative outcome of such a large scale mechanism then what tells that about their ability to predict anything at all? Predicting market growth and economy gaps is as good a science as predicting the outcome of a horse race! You can be very busy with it, state all kinds of complex varieties on strategies and outcomes, in the end the horse has to prove it. Not the scientist who predicts.
Is there really "a gap" ? Some would say so pointing towards the large number of mobile devices that have been sold, and that are expected to be sold in the near future. But, let's be honest, does that tell us anything about how those devices will be used? No, it doesn't. Those figures mainly are about mobile devices sold to consumers. How the masses use a mobile device is well known by the most of us. That tells you nothing about how much businesses are investing in the purchase of mobile devices, neither about what they intend to do with them. Some say, businesses will start using mobile devices because many employees demand it and because many employees already have them so it does not need any investment AT ALL. Then tell me why many corporations have been closing down their networks for any other computer then the identified own machines in the last decades? Network administrators are rejecting more and more any computer on their networks that is not "their own". Including laptops from employees. The reason for that being clearly the many security risks they provide, being anything from viruses to information theft risks or loss of productivity because of large private downloads over the companies network and internet structures.
If you have not that much to do this morning, grab a cup of coffee and walk in to the office of your network administrator and ask him what he thinks about letting a few hundred privately owned mobile devices in on his network. Be sure not to stand close to him though, and whatever you do, don't ask him while he is drinking coffee because he will most certainly spit it out on your new business suit! That people would be allowed to use their mobile devices on a large scale in business networks is a "happy fixed idea" that does not exist in the real world. For the majority of corporations only business owned and controlled mobile devices will be allowed on the network and even then with restricted security settings. And there is a whole war to be fought with system administrators and information security officers before even that happens.
And let's be a bit realistic here: which company owner or corporation president would like their employees walking around with a device that will pull them out of business activities into private affairs in a blink of an eye? Nobody would.
So it is my best guess (but as said: who knows??) that mobile devices will be accepted in business networks to some extend, but mostly company owned, and not privately hold devices. Which means the staggering amount of mobile devices sold is not telling you anything about the market perspective of mobile applications. Just like the amount of home computer sets, WII or Game Boy game sets sold does not.
My conclusion is, that the best guess is that there WILL be a market for mobile applications, but that this market will be very restricted due to the function of the employee using it and the restrictions of the mobile device in itself. It will not make the desktop or the web application go away. It will NOT be "a game changer", but realistically just a niche market that adds to the existing basket of possibilities. This new market also seems to ring the bell with us on the worst possible moment: when companies are running short of money and the likeliness of them doing big time investments is extremely small.
Yes, I think the Mobile Device Business Programming market is sort of a "Y2K-Hype". As I see it, the expectations around it are blown out of proportions and not realistic. But I can't predict anything either with much chance of being right, so don't take my word on it for being the truth. Nevertheless, I too will keep up with this new innovation and try to see if and, if yes, how it can be of service to my own applications, and how it may serve my own customers.
Since this is a forum, it is a nice subject to discuss in the light of the newest Alpha Software blog post.
Do YOU think the mobile programming market for you as an Alpha Five developer will be huge and a game changer for your income?
Will YOU step in to it and acquire software and knowledge in this new possibility? Will YOU invest in it?
Is this yet again another "Y2K"-type bug? Something everybody raves about and panics about. Something that took millions of dollars of investments but in the end turned out to be just a very minor problem?
Mobile solutions are needed if they fulfill a need and can render a sound return on investment. Furthermore, the climate of investment needs to be up to the challenge. Looking at the crisis in many western countries, that to begin with does not seem to be the case. According to UNCTAD reports (UNCTAD World Investment Report 2012), UNCTAD estimates that the global FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) will increase only moderately in 2012 and warns for the fragility of the World Economy with growth still tempered by the debt crisis and further financial market volatility which will have an impact on the flows. This even matters more for the developed countries who's growth rate is even smaller then the developing and transition economies show. So, the financial climate for investments is most certainly not bright, and in such a situation companies tend to make conservative priority decisions on investment needs. Is it really to be expected that companies will engage the supposed "mobile gap" with large investments and great elan? Or is it rather to be expected that most will sit on their current systems and look at what competition will do first?
Mobile solutions have their strengths and weaknesses like any other IT solution. There will doubtlessly be an added value for some types of functionality, aimed at specific types of users. The examples of those market niches have been given more then once and I think those examples are all valid. The big question is, whether that "added value" is large enough in terms of market size to speak of a "gap". At this moment, I can't see that. Sure, there is a market, and there will be a revenue for some who engage into this market with success. But if we are supposed to believe that this market share will be huge or even significant so there will be room for all of us to successfully make a living it it I can't follow that reasoning. Nothing in the market points towards that idea. Of course, suppliers that are directly connected with this market will do their very best to promote their products and make investment in their products as interesting as possible. That is to be expected. Often making use of individuals or organizations who "predict" certain economic developments. Only very very few of them however predicted the financial mortgage crisis to grow to an almost worldwide scale, affecting almost every large and small economy in the world. If they were not even able to predict the negative outcome of such a large scale mechanism then what tells that about their ability to predict anything at all? Predicting market growth and economy gaps is as good a science as predicting the outcome of a horse race! You can be very busy with it, state all kinds of complex varieties on strategies and outcomes, in the end the horse has to prove it. Not the scientist who predicts.
Is there really "a gap" ? Some would say so pointing towards the large number of mobile devices that have been sold, and that are expected to be sold in the near future. But, let's be honest, does that tell us anything about how those devices will be used? No, it doesn't. Those figures mainly are about mobile devices sold to consumers. How the masses use a mobile device is well known by the most of us. That tells you nothing about how much businesses are investing in the purchase of mobile devices, neither about what they intend to do with them. Some say, businesses will start using mobile devices because many employees demand it and because many employees already have them so it does not need any investment AT ALL. Then tell me why many corporations have been closing down their networks for any other computer then the identified own machines in the last decades? Network administrators are rejecting more and more any computer on their networks that is not "their own". Including laptops from employees. The reason for that being clearly the many security risks they provide, being anything from viruses to information theft risks or loss of productivity because of large private downloads over the companies network and internet structures.
If you have not that much to do this morning, grab a cup of coffee and walk in to the office of your network administrator and ask him what he thinks about letting a few hundred privately owned mobile devices in on his network. Be sure not to stand close to him though, and whatever you do, don't ask him while he is drinking coffee because he will most certainly spit it out on your new business suit! That people would be allowed to use their mobile devices on a large scale in business networks is a "happy fixed idea" that does not exist in the real world. For the majority of corporations only business owned and controlled mobile devices will be allowed on the network and even then with restricted security settings. And there is a whole war to be fought with system administrators and information security officers before even that happens.
And let's be a bit realistic here: which company owner or corporation president would like their employees walking around with a device that will pull them out of business activities into private affairs in a blink of an eye? Nobody would.
So it is my best guess (but as said: who knows??) that mobile devices will be accepted in business networks to some extend, but mostly company owned, and not privately hold devices. Which means the staggering amount of mobile devices sold is not telling you anything about the market perspective of mobile applications. Just like the amount of home computer sets, WII or Game Boy game sets sold does not.
My conclusion is, that the best guess is that there WILL be a market for mobile applications, but that this market will be very restricted due to the function of the employee using it and the restrictions of the mobile device in itself. It will not make the desktop or the web application go away. It will NOT be "a game changer", but realistically just a niche market that adds to the existing basket of possibilities. This new market also seems to ring the bell with us on the worst possible moment: when companies are running short of money and the likeliness of them doing big time investments is extremely small.
Yes, I think the Mobile Device Business Programming market is sort of a "Y2K-Hype". As I see it, the expectations around it are blown out of proportions and not realistic. But I can't predict anything either with much chance of being right, so don't take my word on it for being the truth. Nevertheless, I too will keep up with this new innovation and try to see if and, if yes, how it can be of service to my own applications, and how it may serve my own customers.
Since this is a forum, it is a nice subject to discuss in the light of the newest Alpha Software blog post.
Do YOU think the mobile programming market for you as an Alpha Five developer will be huge and a game changer for your income?
Will YOU step in to it and acquire software and knowledge in this new possibility? Will YOU invest in it?
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