Forrester's Ted Schadler recently blogged about "The Mobile Goat Rodeo." In case you're unfamiliar (as I was), goat rodeo is a term "used by aviation people (and others in higher risk situations) to describe a scenario that requires about 100 things to go right at once if you intend to walk away from it." Ted's right that the path to enterprise mobility has a lot of moving parts, but using anenterprise mobile app platformfor code-free mobile app development removes a lot of the complexity.
Mobile app development is expensive, and a potential governance nightmare. But it doesn't have to be.
A single mobile enterprise app is costly to develop (anywhere from $50K to $150K, by estimates). Now multiply that by the number of applications in your business. And that's just to develop on one platform. Mobile Apps require specialized skills across numerous platforms that are constantly updating. With Appian's Mobile BPM you take a huge bite out of that cost, time and skills equation. Extra development cost goes to zero, as any app created on the Appian platform becomes a native mobile app simply through a series of check boxes. Appian's code-free composition means you compose a process application once and automatically publish it, with full native mobile capabilities, to every popular device platform.
The management headaches are another significant hurdle. In a blog post on ZDNet, Ted points out that already, 35% of US information workers use a smartphone for work. What should your device management policy be? How do you know the platform(s) your company chooses to support will still be leading the market (or even in the market) five years from now? Further, employees increasingly use their personal mobile devices for work, regardless of any official device policy (if one even exists). With Appian, you don't have to choose. iOS, Android and RIM are all natively - and automatically - supported. And as the mobile platform market continues to evolve, Appian will adjust accordingly.
Mobile app development is becoming a must in the enterprise. The demographic trend is gaining force, and the clear business value afforded by mobility is starting to be realized. Corporate business and IT leaders (and their IT staff) are struggling to keep up with mobile workers' expectations. Appian can remove some significant and complex obstacles. Read more in our white paper, "Business Agility in the Mobile Age."
-Ben Farrell, Director, Corporate Communications
