When Apple announced the iPhone SDK in March of 2008, the computing landscape was changed forever. With the advent of the iPhone, Android, WebOS, and Windows Phone 7 devices and operating system, in addition to the existing Blackberry ecosystem, mobile became a venerable platform competitor to the desktop. As a developer who works for an “app agency”, mobile has been on my/our radar for several years now. Although consumer brands are usually one of the first to jump on the cutting-edge tech bandwagon, one of the sometimes frustrating realities of life in the “agency world” is the perceived slow adoption of sexy new consumer technologies among enterprise clients. These new mobile platforms were no exception.
While many of us were gobbling up iPhones and Androids for personal use over the last couple of years at a record pace, the second half of 2010 was the first time many enterprise users were able to use anything other than the previous generation Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices in the office. While “mobile app” has been a part of the lexicon of the connected consumer masses–and therefore agencies working with consumer brands–for a while now, agencies working with non-consumer or enterprise brands are just now starting to hear customers talk about them when discussing delivery and development strategy.
If 2010 was the year of the mobile consumer app, then I believe 2011 will be the year of the mobile enterprise app, namely the sales tool. Last year may have been all about tweeting from your pocket and gaming on the go. This year will be about pitching from the palm of your hand. With HTML5 and Adobe’s Flash / AIR combination allowing for expressive cross-platform, experiences and the ever increasing computing horsepower found in the mobile devices of today and tomorrow, we expect to deliver powerful multi-platform app experiences for a significant number of our customers this year. In many ways, the always-connected, location-aware mobile device offers a greater range of app experience than is possible on the desktop. We intend to help our clients take full advantage. What is your organization doing to enable the mobile sales force?
Tags: Adobe, AIR, Android, BlackBerry, Flash, HTML5, iPhone, Mobile, WebOS
