KEY POINTS▲ A mobile app mustcontribute to a com-pany’s operations or rev-enue in order to justifythe time and expense ofdeveloping it.

▲ Apps developed forthe Web may be easierto develop and moreuniversally accessible,but apps written to runon specific phone plat-forms tend to be richerand higher performance.

▲ Expect an averagemobile app’s develop-ment to cost anywherefrom $2,000 to $10,000and require three weeksto code, depending onproject complexity.

▲ App stores may pro-vide a lot of exposure,but apps are in manyways just anotherproduct in need of aggressive marketing.

Does Your BusinessNeed An App?Criteria For Going Mobile

by William Van Winkle

You wouldn’t expect a Georgia-basedtrucking outfit to need a mobile app.Amazon? Sure. Banks? Obviously. But a

trucking firm?Sure enough, developer Killer Mobile Software

(www.killermobile.com) is bidding on a job to re-place a $3,000 piece of equipment sitting in each ofits client’s rigs. The old device used GPS, CDMAnetwork connectivity, and a little keypad to tracktruck location and driver activity. Its replacement:a $200 smartphone running a custom app.

If even a trucking company needs a mobile app,what about your organization? According toResearch in Motion’s Tyler Lessard, vice presidentof global alliances and developer relations, busi-nesses tend to start with using smartphones for ac-cessing email, basic calendaring, and collaboration,but over time it becomes apparent where and howother applications could be beneficial.

“We obviously see a lot of activity with con-sumer-facing applications today in app stores,”says Lessard. “What we don’t hear a lot about—but it’s happening everywhere—is internal appli-cations that people are building or procuring fortheir employees. We increasingly see the impor-tance of smartphones growing in the SMB space ascompanies try to use technology to be more com-petitive, more productive, and get more thingsdone. Apps are key to enabling that.”

Sometimes, companies get lucky and the appsthey need can be downloaded straight from the de-veloper or an app store. But if one-size-fits-all appsdon’t do the trick, then it’s time for some soulsearching. Just because “everybody” is hopping onthe app wagon doesn’t mean it always makessense to do so.

“A mobile app has to fit the business model,”says Metodi Filipov, managing director for mobilesoftware developer Bianor (www.bianor.com). “Ithas to do something—help customers or help youcommunicate with those customers or even im-prove business processes internally.”

Apps can do everything from direct marketingto repeating sales goals, but they should ideally bebacked with a purpose that can be measuredagainst an ROI target. Also remember that apps areuseful, but they don’t necessarily have to be (andsometimes shouldn’t be) optimized for mobile de-vices in order to succeed.

Device Or Web?When a company decides that a mobile app is

necessary, there’s one major choice to make before

MOBILE OFFICEBUSINESS ON THE ROAD

BlackBerry now leans

heavily toward

running mobile apps

as server-based Web

apps accessed through

the phone’s browser,

an approach that can

help reduce an app’s

development time.

44 December 2010 / www.pctoday.com

MOBILE OFFICEBUSINESS ON THE ROAD

any other issues can be addressed: Should the ap-plication reside on the mobile device or the Web?This is key for several reasons, including that com-panies tend to have more Web design experienceon staff and that virtually any smartphone can ac-cess one version of an app on a properly formattedWeb site. If the company wants to pursue an on-de-vice approach, then multiple app versions will beneeded. These days in the U.S. that means at leastAndroid, Apple, and BlackBerry platforms, but alsopossibly Symbian, Samsung’s bada, and the Intel/Nokia mobile OS, MeeGo.

Does that mean that you should immediatelyjump to a Web approach? Not necessarily. From auser perspective, all other things being equal, com-puting on-device is superior because it eliminatesloads of network latency and data transfer times, soworkers access what they need more efficiently.(This can also translate into lower network usagefees.) In larger deployments, emphasizing on-devicecan also take some load off of central Web servers,lowering costs there.

But if a mobile Web sitemakes more sense, whatsort of site should it be?

“Say I’m looking for abook,” says Pankaj Dhing-ra, CTO of the mobile finance solutions provid-er mFunds, LLC (www.mfundsllc.com). “Once Iknow the author or thetitle, it’s no problem tobuy with a phone. You cando it with a simple WAPsite. But to buy jeans, theremay be many more vari-ables. The more browsing that’s required, the moresophisticated the site needed to support it.”

Fortunately, the phone platform vendors are in-creasingly trying to make it easier for companies

and individuals to develop better apps with lowerexpertise requirements. Google, for example, has itsApp Inventor for Android (appinventor.googlelabs.com/about). With this, even first-time devel-opers can use the environment’s building block-based interface to construct mobile apps for

Android devices. Justknow that the level of appsophistication such toolscan achieve is not on parwith more traditionaltools found in Google’sSDK and NDK. You getwhat you pay for.

Research in Motionprovides developers witha full set of Java tools forbuilding apps that con-nect out to on-premise orhosted servers. The draw-back, says RIM’s Lessard,

is that most small businesses tend not to have Java-savvy programmers on staff. But this is also part ofwhy the industry is migrating to standard Webtechnologies for app creation.

For those with little mobile app coding skill, Google’s App Inventor can be a quick

shortcut to writing simple apps for Android in-house.

These screen grabs

for byte2’s Office2

(www.bytesquared.com)

come from Apple’s App

Store. Note how byte2

combines feature

explanation with its

screen captures.

Killer Mobile Software crafts its mobile apps, such as

Calling Card Dialer (shown here), with interfaces that

are simple, familiar, and intuitive.

PC Today / December 2010 45

Time & MoneyThe amount of time and money an SMB should

put into developing a Web app should correlatewith how integral that app is to the company’s lineof business. Our sources agree that a simple busi-ness app will typically take a few weeks to buildwhile a complex project can take up to six months.Killer Mobile has produced over 100 apps forclients, and most fall in the $3,000 to $10,000 range.Bianor’s Filipov states that an average app willcost from $20,000 to $30,000. Pankaj Dhingra frommFunds pegs $5,000 to $50,000 and notes that thisis still far preferable to hiring a full-time developerin-house for at least $100,000 annually. “In mostcases,” says Dhingra, “it’s much easier to findsomeone. At the end of the day, unless you’re atechnology company, it’s better to outsource. If youknow what needs to be done, you can findsomeone for a couple thousand dollars.”

Understanding the development process,knowing “what needs to be done,” is key.Otherwise you’re likely to be quoted a lowballfigure that in actuality only covers coding time, notplanning before the coding or testing after coding.Knowing the process is doubly critical when shop-ping a job overseas. “You could go to Rent a Coder[now vWorker.com] and get 20 bids ranging from$50 to $10,000,” says Alner. “Half of the bidderswon’t have read it or can’t read English, and you’llget wildly mixed results. Often, it’s a huge waste ofboth time and money.”

The common denominator in app developmentis man-hours, according to Filipov. When one de-veloper quotes 10 hours and another quotes 100,you know one of them is likely under- or overesti-mating. Hiring a consultant can help you knowwhat development time ranges are fair, especiallywhen your engineering requirements are clearlydefined; this prevents getting tied up with a devel-oper that doesn’t understand your requirements.Filipov adds that just as you don’t want to hire apainter when it’s really an interior designer that’sneeded, you should avoid simple coders whenmore complex development is called for.

The real black hole in mobile app development istesting time, which only magnifies with each addi-tional phone platform supported. “Our Call Re-corder has 40 different settings, some of which havemultiple options,” says Alner. “Multiply everythingout and you’ve got tens, maybe hundreds of thou-sands of variable combinations and any number ofenvironmental situations. So probably half of yourproject time is debugging and testing.”

DistributionAn app for in-house use obviously takes little to

distribute. For customer-facing mobile apps,though, the usual vehicles are the company’s ownsite along with the various app stores provided forthe major platforms. These app stores may comewith their own requirements and limitations. Forexample, the Android Market (www.android.com/market) contains a very low barrier for entry—$25to register with nearly instant posting—but theMarket is notorious for being a barely regulated en-vironment in which legitimately useful apps swirlfreely with spamware and bug-ridden dreck. At the

opposite extreme sits Apple’s App Store (www.apple.com/iphone/apps-for-iphone), which, quipsAlner, can take as long to review and post a sub-mitted app as it takes to create the app in the firstplace. For paid apps, Apple and Research In Motionboth do a 70/30 split with the developer, keeping30% of the paid price for themselves.

The trick is to realize that a customer-facing app,like any other product, requires marketing and ef-fort in order to become known. “People put theirapp in the app store and wake up the next daythinking that magically they’re going to have onemillion users,” says Filipov. “No, you’re competingwith thousands and thousands of people in onestore. It’s like getting twelve inches of shelf space inWalgreen’s. You still have to sell the product.” ▲

MOBILE OFFICEBUSINESS ON THE ROAD

Mobile apps increasingly need to address suitability to both

smartphones and tablets, such as RIM’s new PlayBook.

As a platform developer,

mFunds has the advantage

of being able to sell its

mobile apps to multiple

clients, often with little

more than a skin change.

The real black hole in mobileapp development is testingtime, which only magnifieswith each additional phone

platform supported.

46 December 2010 / www.pctoday.com