Reaping In The Benefits Of Mobile Application Developers

Over the past few years mobile computing has gained increased attention of the research community and has also made its way to the mainstream consumers and commercial industry through PDA’s and Smartphones. However, today more than ever these devices have the capacity to run standalone mobile applications and disseminate client-server applications that access data through a web gateway. This has further opened new channels for future mobile application and service development. For several years the mobile service development was generally monitored and managed by mobile network operators (MNO), content providers, phone manufacturers and other mobile application service providers.

In the recent past, this has changed with the advent of new mobile phones and platforms for instance iPhone.  Mobile app development has garnered greater interest amidst the independent developers. The ongoing development of hardware associated with mobile computing, for instance larger wireless network bandwidth, better computing power clearly improved capacities of mobile devices.

Mobile Application Development Focus Areas
Today companies specializing in  iphone application development have forayed into the mobile application landscape. These companies with their years of experience have profound knowledge and understanding of this vertical.

 Their focus areas include the following

· Location-Based Services (LBS)
·       Mobile Media Streaming
· Presence and Social Networking
· Messaging and Syncing
·       Mobile Advertising and Ad Engines
·       Mobile VoIP
·    Gaming

Services Offered By Mobile Application Development Companies

Modern day mobile application development companies havethe experience of working with top market players in the mobile landscape.

 Their innovative applications and support capacities can perform the following:

·         Setting up mobile applications in J2ME, BREW, Android, iPhone, Symbian, Windows Mobile and 

BlackBerry
· Conceptualizing mobile applications and eliciting needs such as UI design, prototype, wireframes, user 

stories)
·         Designing, developing and QA testing applications
·         Porting mobile applications between devices and platforms
· Developing server-side and infrastructure, including for location and mapping services
· Incorporating third-party components on the server side such as SMS/MMS, billing, feeds, ads, content and 

so on                   
· Incorporating carrier, SMSC and billing systems such as LBS platform for location determination
· Coordinating with carriers and device manufacturers for mobile application testing and certification
· Distributing and launching mobile applications
·         Carrier catalogs and storefronts
·         Offers maintenance and product assistance services

 

Keeping in mind the modern day consumer demands today several mobile application developers have forayed into market with cost-efficient and secure applications that helps end users to navigatetheir mobile through useful applications.

Related Links:  advisoryservices, distributedagile development

Meet Product Development Challenges with Product Engineering Lab

Wikipedia defines product engineering as “the process of designing and developing a device, assembly, or system such that it be produced as an item for sale through some production manufacturing process.” Simply put, it includes the creation of the product concept and the design and development of its mechanical, electronic and software components. Thus, the product engineering process involves design, development, and transitioning to manufacturing of the product. It deals with issues of cost, quality, producibility, reliability, serviceability, performance, and user features that play an important role to make a product attractive to its intended market and thereby increase the profit margins of the enterprise.

With companies of all sizes are challenged to develop high-quality products, release new features ahead of the competition, and customize products for different languages, technologies and customer requirements – all while reducing operating costs and risks, product engineers have their tasks cut out. The following are some of their important responsibilities.

·         Define the yield roadmap and drive the fulfillment during ramp-up and volume production

·         Recognize and realize measures for yield enhancement, test optimization and product cost minimization

·         Provide DFM Design for manufacturability methods

·         Define a qualification plan and conduct electrical characterization analysis

In such a scenario, companies that lack a product engineering team or need to support a single product or entire product line must partner with service providers who can rapidly set up an offshore distributed agile development lab (PEL) that provide clients with full lifecycle R&D and support services, as well as proven processes and dedicated product engineering With the PEL engagement model, clients can easily fulfill its various requirements such as expanding its geographical footprint, consolidating captive product engineering labs, and accessing unique talent markets very easily. Here is a look at some of its distinctive features.

·         Organization-wide relationship with long-term contractual commitments and outcomes measured at the 

          CXO level

·         Well-articulated Year 1, 2, 3 strategy that is captured in a Build-Operate-Transfer construct

·         FTE-based, volume discounted pricing that is based on SLAs and a risk-reward framework

·         Tightly coupled with business stakeholders to achieve strategic alignment and loosely coupled with 

         operational architectures to foster creativity and drive value

An important advantage of PEL is that it frees enterprises to focus on their core business and engineering activities as the service provider takes complete responsibility for one or more R&D functions.

Thus with the PEL, companies can focus on their core competencies and at the same be assured that all stages of the software product development lifecycle, from product conceptualization to product extensions are carried out efficiently.

Related Links: software development

Mobile Apps Development – Interfacing Platforms and Devices

Today's  evolutionary world makes it vital for the enterprises to keep their environment in tune with the changing technology landscape. With technology becoming   more  open from the interoperability perspective, enterprises use  technology as a critical business enabler. Mobile phones which were initially developed for easy communication when on the move  have today evolved into devices that offer communications in various forms from text messaging, email, Internet access, Blue-tooth communications to business applications, gaming and photography and other  general computing capabilities.

With the development of  smartphones  the days of monolithic applications left behind. Technology has surged ahead today with  software applications as modular components. The  spectrum of new devices made available in the market paves way  for  customers to look forward to new applications that can be loaded on these devices to meet their ever-changing demands. The new technology landscape being a vibrant space full of opportunities, creating simple and effective applications while maintaining the need for safe and secure data access, mobile apps  development has  now become  a challenge for the mobile application developer.

Wikipedia defines mobile application development as - “the process by which application software is developed for low-power handheld devices, such as personal digital assistants, enterprise digital assistants or mobile phones". These applications which can either  be pre-installed on phones during manufacture or  can be downloaded by customers from various mobile software distribution platforms, or delivered as web applications  to provide an "application-like" experience within a Web browser.  However,with the exponential growth of the mobile market, and the availability of next-generation technology based platforms, the end-users today look for mobile applications with more processing power,  flexibility, reliability, security and ability to integrate  with other applications.

The leading service providers and IT giants have developed software tools and process to help the application development teams to  develop cost-effective applications  that can enhance e-commerce solutions. However, being focused on mobile apps development, the developers with an in-depth domain understanding work on areas such as Location-Based Services (LBS),  Mobile Media Streaming, social networking, messaging & syncing, mobile ad engines, Mobile VoIP  and Gaming.

The mobile applications developed by the leaders in the sector enhances the mobile ecosystem functioning by effectively performing the tasks such as

·         Developing mobile applications for various platforms along with quality analysis testing

·         Conceptualizing mobile applications and eliciting requirements of user interface design, prototype etc.

·         Interfacing mobile applications between platforms and devices

·       Developing server-side and infrastructure, including for location & mapping services

·       Integrating third-party components and carrier for SMS, MMS, billing systems

·       Coordinating with carriers and device manufacturers for  testing and certification

·       Launching and distributing mobile applications

·       providing carrier catalogs

Besides these tasks, the  mobile application development teams while working through with various layers of the mobile device, either directly or in collaboration with third-party providers also ensure  maintenance and product support services leading to  enhanced customer satisfaction.

Related Links: advisory services, product engineering