Mobile Business App Implementation: Technologies, Platforms & Success

This management report explores the technologies, platforms, success factors, and cost considerations for implementing a mobile business app. It begins with an introduction to the increasing importance of mobile applications in business, highlighting factors like screen resolution, data usage, and connectivity. The report discusses various mobile technologies such as iOS, Android, and Windows Mobile, along with their respective development tools and languages. It also examines mobile application development platforms, emphasizing the importance of code portability and compatibility. Key success factors, including building app awareness, ensuring user dependency, and delivering timely information, are analyzed. Cost factors like the complexity of the business logic, backend infrastructure, and hosting costs are also discussed. The report concludes with case studies of mobile apps like TripView, WikiCamps, Procreate, and Clipp, comparing their technologies, platforms, and business strategies to support the arguments presented. The overall aim is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the elements needed for a successful mobile business app implementation.

Management Report

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Technologies....................................................................................................................................4
Platform...........................................................................................................................................5
Success Factors................................................................................................................................7
Cost factors and key components....................................................................................................8
Comparison with mobile apps.........................................................................................................9
Summary........................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

Introduction
Mobile devices which are considered as cutting-edge technology of the modern era seem to grab
more attention of today’s press. Even though, the applications work in a similar manner both on
laptops or desktops but what really matters is how easily the customers can make use of it which
governs the success of a business... From small applications to large applications, with the use of
best optimization solutions, mobile software has grown exponentially and this has lead to the
positive growth of the business sector.(Sullivan, 2015).
Irrespective of the age group, almost everyone does have mobile devices and everything is now
just one tap away. Most importantly, growth of internet from cables to cellular data, and the
increase of mobile devices have increased and the growth is impressive.
The applications that run on the mobile environment depend on several factors which include:
 Screen resolution
 Expensive data usage
 Connectivity issues
 Limited interactive possibilities
 Hardware limitations etc
In mobile application development business, there are two types of business models that are
present. Namely, native or on- deck and the other business model is the off -deck or it may be
also called as Third party (Islam et al., 2010).
Technologies
Mobile technologies vary from one device to another. Mobile technologies and the operating
system that are built in each device aren’t the same. And because of this reason, there are various

technologies that are been used or to support all types of devices with different operating
systems.
There are different mobile technology stack that are present in current world. For example: iOS,
Android, Windows Mobile, Tizen, Cross-platform and Hybrid. At present, iOS and Android are
leading the race of the mobile technology.
Now each stack has its own implications and hence, the technology that is been used to create a
business apps gets changed. There might be various factors that are taken into consideration
while creating a business app in terms of technology. Such as:
 If the business app is too small, then there is no need of cloud computing to be integrated
with the app. This reduces lots of cost.
 Resources for creating the app and choosing appropriate resource to get the work done.
In terms of technology, these are some of the technologies that are been used in iOS apps (Scand,
2018):
 Objective-C
 Swift
 C/C++
 AppCode
 iOS SDK
 XCode
 ARKit etc.
When coming to Android apps, these are the technologies that are been used under hood:
 Java
 Kotlin

 C/C++
 Eclipse
 Gradle
 Maven
 Android Studio
 Android SDK etc
When coming to Windows Mobile, the technologies that are been used are:
 XAML
 Visual Studio
 C#
 C/C++
 .NET
Platform
Mobile application development platform is one of the type of the software development tool
that allows a business rapidly build their own customized software in line with their business
requirements. These platforms will also help in deploying for both smart phones and also tablets
(Techtarget, 2017).
There includes various factors that are considered while selecting and finalizing mobile app
development platform because once the app is built, it is a time consuming and also costly affair
to introduce change because of the unscheduled or unplanned design or improper understanding
of the business app. Once the third party software is purchased for the development of the app

using their inbuilt API’s, it should also be fairly useful to test and run the same app on various
devices without much effort needed in configuration.
Code portability is one more factor to look upon while shifting or moving the app from one
platform to the other because to shift or to port the code from one platform to the other isn’t that
easy. Compatibility issues, coding issues, browser related issues, maintenance and update issues,
performance issues and many other issues come into picture. So, it is more advisable to take care
of the portable software at the beginning or development stage of the mobile app (Think
Mobiles, 2018).
The greatest advantage of the cross platforms apps is that they can run on all the devices without
much change. Testing is easy and hence, time consumed is also less.
There are many cross platform mobile app development software which are present in the market
and are popular among masses (Furlan, 2018):
 PhoneGap
 Sencha
 Kony
 AlphaAnywhere
 Redhat
 Xamarin
 iFactr etc.
Success Factors
 Building awareness regarding app – it is a fact that mobile applications are helping
business groups and more the users are relying on the company, the more the company

gains. It is important to note that the users don’t get much attention when the app is
deployed. It has to be put on notifications and, more successfully the app is updated and
deployed there are more chances that the app catches the eye of the user. Once the user
discovers the application, the road to configure, install, and activation of the app should
be smooth and if it is not the case, then there are high chances that the user loses interest
and deletes the app (Aetherpal, 2018).
 Dependency at early stages – If the application is installed in a user’s mobile then, the
user must need to have great experience rather than completely abandon the application
out of frustration. Each application gets a chance to create the impression in customer’s
mind and this has to be made packet full (Aetherpal, 2018).
 ROI Business and success in terms of technology – It is clear that the application can do
business and this is actually twofold. It is because if the sponsors are happy and if the
application is productive then it does good business in the market and if that doesn’t
happen, more than the shareholders, it is the customers who lose at larger extent. And
because of this reason, the terms and conditions of the app needs to be clearly mentioned
to the customers or users who are using it. In the end, it is the customer who judges the
business in the market (Aetherpal, 2018).
 Timely information – It is important that the application should let know its customers
about the changes that are been done and what benefits can be secured with the changes
made in the application. If the change sounds lucrative, it is a well-known fact that any
customer would love experiencing it.
 Sharable – Suppose if the app is content -based or dealing with the content which is in the
application, we often hear some news getting huge attention or buzz around and this

mainly happens because of the sharing. In the same regard, for the budding app or
application, it is more vital to get it shared and let it into the public first. At the same
time, security measures should be taken care because no one wants to open any span
email sent by any third party user, which can lead to corrupt mobile devices. Hence,
application developers should take utmost care in sharing of the mobile app (Hylton,
2011).
Cost factors and key components
 Complexity of the business – If the algorithm that processes the data of the
application can’t enhance the application, then it is a negative sign. If the platform
that has been used is native which is built by own, then it has to be well maintained in
a structure, for example, as MVC pattern. It has to be well understood that the logic
gets bigger if the application provides more configuration to the users (Varshneya,
2018).
 Having backend infrastructure will increase the cost of building the app because to
build such apps, resources are more important moreover programming skills are
needed to build the app.
 There are few more areas at which, the cost gets increased such as data storage, app
infrastructure, data encryption techniques, scalability, administrative tasks, 3rd party
software integrations, controls of the app etc(Varshneya, 2018).
 Hosting costs – If the app needs to be hosted 24x7, to deliver fast loading
environment to the user, then it needs to be put somewhere so that the user doesn’t
get any issues while using the app in terms of data. There are few more costs that are

associated with hosting costs which are: web traffic, database hosting, optimization of
the memory, security of user’s data and volume of requests that the app receives etc.
(Kaysharbor, 2018).
Comparison with mobile apps
 TripView – This app facilitates its users to plan their trips by train, bus, ferry, coach
services and light rail. This app is highly data rich and this can be clearly observed
because to getting the routes of all the stations, stops of all the busses and their routes
isn’t that easy, to load on the mobile devices. Hence, the data that’s been loaded to track
the bus or train needs to be high and at the same time, to fetch the data, application needs
to communicate with the servers at real time and also with high efficiency. Coming to the
business strategy, this app also provides its users the benefit of Opal card which is third
party integration to the application. As we have discussed above, third party integration
in the app is cost- effective (Transportnsw, 2018).
 WikiCamps – This app provides its support to smart phones which includes window, iOS
and Android mobile devices and at the same time, it supports tablets and Windows PC
which is a webapp. Now, to provide such extensive app to all the devices, it is
understandable that it takes lot of resources to build the app and at the same time, this app
is clearly not backend based which is built by own programmers. And this concludes that
the app uses cross platform mobile app development, which is a third party software and
since the data are also rich, data management system is high and needs continuous
updates which increases the cost as the data usage increases (Wikicamps, 2018).

 Procreate – This app is exclusively made for iPAD and iOS devices. This application is
highly used to create paintings, illustrations and also draw beautiful sketches. This app is
solely built for one specific device in mind and this narrows down the applicability of the
as it is not cross platform mobile app and thus it is not cost- effective. As the app is
targeting specific users, this increases the growth of the users and also increases the
business of the app because targeting a specific kind of audience is easier and also, it can
support multiple users with ease in less time thereby increasing productivity of the app
(Procreate, 2018).
 Clipp – This app gathers all the events that are happening in Australia and then,
collaborates with them and provide users of app with benefits at low cost. This app is
collecting huge amount of data and the data needs to be updated on timely basis. This app
also facilitates its users to split the bills and this is huge advantage to the app users. This
app is also supporting Android and iOS devices which narrows us down to cross platform
application (Clipp, 2018).
Summary
1. To develop a mobile app, the key factors that has to be dealt with are:
a. Design – For ensuring smooth experience to the user
b. User friendly – Develop the application that is user -friendly
2. High algorithms are cost -effective and also require resources to program the application.
3. Cross platform mobile applications which are built on third party software should be well
studied and then, it should be used in the mobile apps.

4. Success factors should be followed in order to get or grab the attention of the user or
customer.
5. Cost and key concepts should always be remembered because this phase can drown the
company and leave its customers into trouble. Managing of resources, data, security,
cross platform costs and hosting costs should be maintained.
6. Mobile application should target specific users so that the app seeks the attention of the
users and later, it can be provided for cross platform devices with ease.
References
Aetherpal (2018) Five Critical Factors for Successful Enterprise Mobile Apps [online].
Available from:
https://aetherpal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wp_criticalfactorsforsuccessfulappdeploymen
ts.pdf [Accessed 2018 May 2018].
Clipp (2018) Clipp [online]. Available from: https://clipp.co/ [Accessed 21 May 2018].
Furlan, A. (2018) Cross Platform Mobile App Development Guide (2017) [online]. Available
from: http://www.businessofapps.com/guide/cross-platform-mobile-app-development/ [Accessed
21 May 2018].
Hylton, R., 2011. Top 10 Mobile App Success Factors [online]. Available from:
http://transpara.com/blog/2011/10/17/top-10-mobile-app-success-factors.html [Accessed 21 May
2018].
Islam, M.R., Islam, M.R. & Mazumder, T.A. (2010) Mobile Application and Its Global Impact.
International Journal of Engineering & Technology, 10(6), pp.72-77.
Kaysharbor (2018) 5 factors to look out for [online]. Available from:
https://kaysharbor.com/blog/mobile/mobile-app-development-cost-and-factors-to-consider
[Accessed 21 May 2018].
Procreate (2018) Sketch. Paint. Create [online]. Available from: https://procreate.art/ipad
[Accessed 21 May 2018].
Scand (2018) Mobile Technologies [online]. Available from:
https://scand.com/technologies/mobile-development/ [Accessed 21 May 2018].
Sullivan, F.&. (2015) It's Time to Seriously Assess Your Mobile App Strategy.

Techtarget (2017) Mobile application development platform (MADP) [online]. Available from:
https://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/mobile-application-development-
platform [Accessed 21 May 2018].
Think Mobiles (2018) What are the popular types and categories of apps [online]. Available
from: https://thinkmobiles.com/blog/popular-types-of-apps/ [Accessed 21 May 2018].
Transportnsw (2018) TripView [online]. Available from: https://transportnsw.info/apps/tripview
[Accessed 2018 May 2018].
Varshneya, R. (2018) 5 Factors that Influence the Cost of Building a Mobile App [online].
Available from: https://www.inc.com/rahul-varshneya/factors-that-influence-the-cost-of-
building-a-mobile-app.html [Accessed 21 May 2018].
Wikicamps (2018) What is WikiCamps [online]. Available from:
https://www.wikicamps.com.au/ [Accessed 21 May 2018]