2014 has been an awesome year for Enterprise Mobility. Although its been 7 years since the first iPhone was released, the most widely used app in the enterprise space is still email, followed by the calendar.
Mobilizing enterprise business applications, never designed or meant for mobility, is not easy, by any stretch of the imagination. But a lot of talented companies and individuals have been moving towards solving this complex challenge. 2014 has seen a lot of innovations in this sector, making it easier than ever to implement mobility.
All these innovations have led to a new category of Mobile App Platforms, as per Gartner, called the RMAD (Rapid Mobile App Development) Platforms. RMAD platforms are essentially RAD (Rapid Application Development) Platforms, designed and built for Mobile.
It is super motivating to see all these innovations! I believe 2015 will be a defining year, which will change the enterprise mobility landscape, as we know it.
The Top 5 Enterprise Mobile App Platforms for 2015
Below are the top 5 mobility platforms who have been innovating and driving towards solving the enterprise mobility challenge. The key parameters for my choices are:
1. Complete End-to-End Platform
The software vendor needs to provide a complete solution, with all the features and functions required to mobile-enable business applications; not just certain pieces of the puzzle. A customer should be able to mobile- enable their applications with this single software platform.
2. Time-to-Value
I would define time-to-value as the time taken from signing the dotted line to actually deploying the apps. This would include H/W, and S/W procurement time, setup time, scoping and implementation time, along with deployment and rollout time.
3. Ease of Deployment
This includes not only how easy it is to learn and deploy the software but also how many resources are required to make this happen. Also, how easy or difficult it is to incorporate the software platform into the corporate fabric.
4. ROI
The return on investment of purchasing and deploying the mobile platform.
Reviewing the 5 Best Mobile App Platforms for 2015
The following platforms are not ranked in order of merit. The innovations are so different that it would not be proper to rank one against the other.
Mendix
Mendix provides a model-driven platform to build and deploy apps. I particularly like the fact that it is targeted towards Citizen Developers; someone who is technically savvy but may not have the necessary programming skill sets. They have innovated from building web applications to apps that can run on any mobile device.
The Mendix platform provides a visual interface for building apps and can be typically deployed in weeks.
Kony
Kony provides an integrated, visual app platform, available in Cloud as well as On-Premise. According to their case studies, they have brought down the implementation time from 9 months to 9 weeks.
Capriza
Capriza is a Virtualization Platform that virtualizes the backend web applications and provides a thin client, called Zapps, on the mobile device. It can interact with the backend application to render specific information on the mobile device.
They claim to mobile-enable backend business applications in about a week, which is impressive.
SAP Fiori
SAP Fiori is not really a platform but a collection of apps for SAP. I included them into the list for their innovation and ability for SAP customers to mobilize hundreds of SAP transactions very quickly.
Fiori is essentially a collection of pre-built mobile apps for specific business processes from SAP.
AnyPresence
The AnyPresence Platform started as a BaaS (Backend-as-a-Service) but has since evolved to include other pieces of the enterprise mobility puzzle. Namely, they have added a web-based designer to build forms and enable developers to quickly assemble apps from pre-built app templates.
The Best Mobile App Platform for Your Organization
There are a lot of vendors in the market place with a lot of innovations. I only see this space evolving to make it easier than ever to mobilize enterprise applications. I am sure we are closer to the reality that one-day we can replace laptops & desktops with Tablets and phones for everyday work.
In addition to these 5 companies, appsFreedom also continues to innovate with our RMAD platform. We feature an industry leading time-to-value, allowing enterprises to build and rollout fully integrated apps in 5 days. If you’re interested in discovering how our platform can empower your organization to build apps faster, take a test drive of the appsFreedom platform today.