Mobile Computing: Components and Design for Enterprise Solutions

This report provides a comprehensive overview of mobile computing, focusing on the design and development of mobile applications for enterprise business solutions. It begins with an introduction to the rapidly evolving landscape of mobile technology and its impact on business and customer interactions. The report then delves into the key components of mobile application design, including the operating system, database, backend server, and user interface design, detailing the platform and technologies associated with each component. It explores various platforms like Android, iOS, and Windows Mobile, along with database technologies such as MySQL and backend server options like Amazon AWS, Google App Engine, and Windows Azure. The report also features a case study of OpenTable, illustrating the benefits of adopting mobile solutions for enhancing customer service. Furthermore, it discusses the cost factors involved in mobile application design and highlights the factors that contribute to the success of a mobile application, such as simplicity in design and effective user interfaces. Overall, the report aims to provide a valuable resource for understanding the key aspects of mobile computing and its application in the enterprise environment.

Running head: MOBILE COMPUTING
MOBILE COMPUTING
Name of the Student
Name of the University

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Table of Contents
Introduction:..........................................................................................................................................2
Components of designing of the mobile application for the enterprise business solution:...................2
Platform and technologies for each of the components:......................................................................3
A case study for the companies adopting mobile business solution:....................................................6
Cost factor for the designing the mobile application for the enterprise mobile solution:.....................6
Success factor:.......................................................................................................................................7
Conclusion:............................................................................................................................................8
Reference:.............................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction:
Today technology is changing rapidly and it is becoming powerful than before. The
advancement of technology has become prevalent in almost every sector of business. Not
only the business itself, technology is also having impact on the way customer interact and
communicate with the enterprise (Berghaus and Back 2014). As the technology has become
affordable, it is now much more accessible than before. The use of smart phone has now
almost become a norm rather than something to show off. With the increase in the use of the
smart phones, customer are now more into obtaining the service through the mobile phones
as it is lot more convenient and portable. Due to this consumer now expects enterprise to
offer services through mobile application. In order to meet this expectation enterprise are now
taking this approach as one of the important aspect of the enterprise success plan.
The report will include sections like components of designing mobile application
containing discussion on the major components for mobile application development, platform
and technologies for integrating each of the components. Along with that a case study has
also been included that discusses the adoption of the mobile solution for improving customer
service.
Components of designing of the mobile application for the enterprise business
solution:
The development of the application is consists of several components for which
several tools and components is required. No matter what the application is intended for these
components are to some extent similar except for few changes depending on the scope and
range of services the application offers.
The components are the following: OS or the operating system :
It is the first and the foremost requirement for the application. Without the OS
the application will not run on the smartphone of the consumers. It controls the
hardware and the software of a particular smartphone or computing devices
 Database :

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Another important component for the mobile applications development is the
database. Database in its simplest term can be thought as the collection of data or
container of data. It stores data in the form of table which is a logical abstraction or
representation of the data to the viewers. Each entry in the table is identified with the
row and column number. Backend server :
One of the important aspect of the mobile application development is to have
the facility of backend server. It basically stores the application related data. It helps
the customer to retrieve application related data if the application crashes. Without the
option of the backend server the application developer or the organization will not be
able to provide this facility to the customer. Design of user interface :
It is the most important factor for designing application as it provides the
interface through which the user interact with the application. Hence the interface had
to be top notch besides making it simple and easy to follow.
Platform and technologies for each of the components:
Operating system:
Platform for the operating system:
Now there are several platform available depending on the target devices. For mobile
devices the major platforms available are android by Google, ios by Apple and windows
mobile by Microsoft.
Apart from the dedicated mobile or pc based application web based applications are
also very popular. There are also several framework for web based application development
such as. Hybrid or cross platform applications development some popular frameworks are
PhoneGap, J2ME Polish.
According to the recent report, Gartner has claimed that more than 50 percent of
mobile apps in 2016 were deployed in the hybrid platform (gratner.com).
Database:
Platform for the database design:

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The platform it supports are Linux, Windows, MacOs and Solaris. Other notable
platform is this regard is the DB2 by IBM.
Technologies for the Database:
Several technologies are available for the database design. However the leading and
the most popular platform is available is the MySQL. It is open source relational database
management system owned by oracle. In order to manipulate the database and the data
contained in the database, the programming language that is most preferred is the PHP as it
integrates well with the MySQL database and offers better control on the data.
Bank of Finland, which happens to be most important bank in Finland, is part of the
European System of Central Banks and the Eurosystem. It serves as the national monitory
authority for the banks in the Finland.
In order to felicitate the payment system for the banks and serve the customer while
doing the payment, the bank of Finland has deployed a central payment system with the
simulator is designed with the MySQL server.
Backend server:
Platform for deploying the backend server:
There are couple of choices for deploying the backend server. It is possible to opt for
either custom or the cloud server. In the custom server it is possible to set the server and then
host it in the backend. However the process is time consuming as it requires to set up the
dedicated server, then static IP address need to be assigned and even the maintenance of the
server have to be done on the by the developer (Ehrenhard et al. 2014). However if the server
is not maintained properly the server will not be able to execute properly. Hence the cloud
server is the most preferred option as there is no need for the manual maintenance from the
developer side.
The cloud server is the one stop solution for the various range of application. It is not
only affordable but flexible too. Hence cloud server is most preferred among the developers
for the application development. Followings are some of the most popular platform for the
cloud server:
Amazon AWS:

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AWS SDK is available for both the iOS and Android. It is very popular for deploying
server for the mobile application. The advantages of the AWS SDK is that it follows very
well documentation style and also provides in-built library that is helpful for the design of the
server.
Google App Engine:
This is standard choice too. It is very easy in terms of managing and offers scalability
according to the traffic of the application. Hence it is scalable according to the number of
clients or customer the application needs to support.
Windows Azure:
Another popular option which is also very effective if the application is built for the
windows mobile platform. It even offers the options to provide authentication for the
application users and also offers the facility to provide push notification for the iOS users.
Technologies for the backend server:
The technologies for the back end server deployment depends on the language which
is used for the server (Legner, Urbach and Nolte 2016). There are various language available
for the server deployment and so are the technologies. The list is described in the table
format:
Language Framework or the technologies
PHP 1. Zend Framework
2. Symfony
3. Yii
4. Laravel
Python The most popular and versatile framework
for Python is Django
Ruby The popular framework for Ruby is Ruby
on Rails and Sinatra
User interface design:
Platform:
Some popular platform for the design of the user interface design are Sketch, Zeplin.

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Some popular tools for the user interface design are the Photoshop, illustrator and Flinto.
Technology:
For the web based mobile application the most popular option is the CSS or cascaded
style sheet which is often used with the HTML for the styling the content of the web
application.
In order to develop the application all of these components are required to integrate
properly. Proper choice of the tools are not only necessary but mandatory for the successful
application development. Although there are several tools for designing each of the
component for the application development, some tools are standard and popular as these
tolls offers effective means for the application design and deployment. Hence only standard
and popular have been described here.
A case study for the companies adopting mobile business solution:
The mobile solutions for serving the customer is becoming more and more popular
and now almost have become a standard for the companies that want to compete in the
market with a dedicated customer service that is fast, accurate and less complex. One such
company is OpenTable, a restaurant booking company based in 1998. It was one of the
leading companies in this sector. However the company was observing a decline in the
restaurant in the revenue as well as in the number of customer booking table with the site.
When investigated, it was found in research that a major change was needed in the way the
company was working at the time of the research was conducted. It was found that as the
company at that time was only having the facility to book restaurant through the website.
However it was found in investigation, market report and survey, there were preference
among the customer to use mobile application for booking table and ordering food from
restaurant (Forbes.com, 2018). Hence the company for the first time launched the exclusive
application both for the ios and android, in 2012 as those platforms were two of the major
platform available at that time. Later in 2015, when windows entered into the mobile
platform, a windows version of the application also got released. After the introduction of the
mobile application for serving the customer, the company reported a significant growth in the
revenue with 50% higher customer base that booked table through the OpenTable. The
numbers were published in the 2014 annual report of OpenTable after the introduction of
mobile app in 2012.

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Cost factor for the designing the mobile application for the enterprise mobile
solution:
Requirement and feature of the application:
The requirement and the feature of the application has a huge potential in determining
the cost of the application. It is the initial step of the application design where the goal of the
business and customer service strategy is built.
Complexity of the application:
The complexity of the application is another factor that determines the cost of the
application. For example an application just wants to show products to the users it will
obviously cost less than the application which offers some additional features like payment,
delivery, tracking of product and any other feature the company wants to add.
Platform:
The platform for which the application is being made influence the cost as well. The
same application developed for iOS cost more than the application developed for android.
This is because each platform follows different strategy for revenue through the application
and different technology for app integration.
Security:
The security of the application is another factor that determines the cost of the
application development. The application might contain several sensitive information like
payment details, account information and several personal data (Lyberopoulos et al. 2016).
Now in order to secure the data each application considers its own set of data which is cost
dependent. For example if the application integrates private cloud instead of public cloud it
will improve the security, but the cost will be higher for private cloud.
Success factor:
Simplicity in design:
The design should be simple enough to make it easy for the customer to follow along
and find the desired features they are looking for
User interface:

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The user interface should be attractive as it makes the initial impression which is
important for making them use the application
Device integration:
The app should be integrate well with variety of devices so that customer gets
seamless access around different device
Feedback and resolution:
The consumer might give feedback about issues of accessing the application and how
well these issues are resolved by the developer team is an important factor for the success of
the application designed for the mobile solution to serve the customer.
Conclusion:
The paper concludes that in order to be relevant in today’s market that is driven by
constant innovation and technology, it is important to serve the need of the customer with
services that integrates technology for improving the quality and service time as this is the
demand of the customer. However there are several cost factors like requirements of
application, choice of platforms and level of security applied and other factors as well already
discussed in the above sections. Not all application are efficient to improve the mobile
business solutions for the enterprise. There are some success factors like ease of using
applications, simplicity, device integrity and response to feedback to the customer query. All
of these factors are important to integrate to create a successful mobile business solution for
serving the customer.

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Reference:
Berghaus, S. and Back, A., 2014. Adoption of Mobile Business Solutions and its Impact on
Organizational Stakeholders.
Ehrenhard, M., Wijnhoven, F., van den Broek, T. and Stagno, M.Z., 2017. Unlocking how
start-ups create business value with mobile applications: Development of an App-enabled
Business Innovation Cycle. Technological forecasting and social change, 115, pp.26-36.
Forbes.com. (2018). [online] Available at:
https://www.forbes.com/companies/opentable/#28e267bccdd3 [Accessed 18 Sep. 2018].
https://www.gartner.com/doc/3348018/magic-quadrant-mobile-app-development
Legner, C., Urbach, N. and Nolte, C., 2016. Mobile business application for service and
maintenance processes: Using ex post evaluation by end-users as input for iterative design.
Information & Management, 53(6), pp.817-831.
Lyberopoulos, G., Theodoropoulou, H., Filis, K. and Mesogiti, I., 2016. Smart Mobile
Ecosystem Security: Existing Solutions, MNO Requirements and Business Model.
In Information Sciences and Systems 2015 (pp. 137-146). Springer, Cham.
Tai, Y.T., Huang, C.H. and Chuang, S.C., 2016. The construction of a mobile business
application system for ERP. Kybernetes, 45(1), pp.141-157.
Winter, J., Battisti, S., Burström, T. and Luukkainen, S., 2018. Exploring the success factors
of mobile business ecosystems. International Journal of Innovation and Technology
Management, 15(03), p.1850026.
www.gartner.com. (2018). [online] Available at: