Working with the nation's largest brands, including more than 60 Fortune 500 companies, two of the three largest U.S. banks, and three of the top five U.S. airlines, Kony Solutions released its tally of key mobile market developments for 2012—and the expanding use and sophistication of apps leads the list. The company provides a platform that enables companies to offer apps for any phone, tablet, or browser.

“HTML5 functionality is exploding, revolutionizing consumer expectations of mobile apps, and at the same time, BYOD is compelling IT organizations to adapt quickly,” says Sriram Ramanathan, CTO of Kony. “We’ve heard of ‘consumerization of IT’ but what we’re really working with is the mobilization of the entire workforce, from sales to HR to C-level executives. I predict that organizations in 2012 will feel greater pressure to develop engaging mobile enterprise apps with the agility and adaptability to meet current demand and prepare for future advancements.”

Tapping into his experience developing both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-employee (B2E) mobile applications, Ramanathan predicts that organizations adopting a “mobile first” mindset and taking advantage of HTML5 will be the ones to maintain their competitive advantage and succeed in today’s increasingly mobile-savvy market. Additionally, Ramanathan concurs with widespread third-party forecasts that B2E deployments will take off this year as organizations make mobile a more strategic part of their IT infrastructure. Five key mobile market trends companies should prepare for now include:

 

 

1. The rise of mixed-mode apps—Not all apps are created equal. To take advantage of the benefits of HTML5, along with the ever-expanding capabilities of mobile devices, organizations will rely on mixed-mode apps that combine HTML5 features like enhanced animations and transitions, along with the performance-oriented abilities of native apps to achieve the best individual user experience across phones, tablets, kiosks, and desktops.

 

 

2. HTML5 goes mainstream, pushes the boundaries of handset capabilities—There are more than 9,000 mobile devices on the market and new devices are entering the market at a ferocious pace. ABI Research projects that 44 billion apps will be downloaded by 2016. It’s clear consumers are expecting to have a high-quality and feature-rich app for just about everything. Even though HTML5 isn’t expected to be ratified until 2017, support for this evolving standard is on everyone’s roadmap, and developers and IT departments are hustling to incorporate this functionality to meet consumer demand.

 

 

3. The new JavaScript?: App developers tackle HTML5 using prior expertise—Embracing HTML5 does not mean organizations must start from scratch to implement optimized mobile solutions. Tapping existing JavaScript knowledge, organizations will leverage their current resources when integrating HTML5 technology, thus redefining the developer’s job description.

 

 

4. The mobile workforce: How HTML5 and BYOD come together—In the age of the mobile workforce, today’s employees bring their own devices to work and expect more than a cookie-cutter enterprise application. Organizations will be hard-pressed to find an executive who does not expect feature-rich data, location awareness, and visualization tools when surveying company analytics on-the-go via their mobile devices. And as more organizations implement B2E mobile solutions, we will increasingly see HTML5 as a key enabler of these offerings.

 

 

5. The enterprise is evolving: Organizations restructure to adapt—As BYOD evolves, organizations will restructure the roles of IT departments. This change will manifest itself in the role of a Mobile CIO and the build-out of new Mobile Centers of Excellence, charged with assigning application policies, regulating internal practices, and ensuring solutions are optimized to take full advantage of the mobile channel. No longer will teams look first to the Web Development department—instead, expect mobile to lead the charge on business strategy.

 

 

[This article was posted on April 4, 2012, on the website of ABA Banking Journal, www.ababj.com.]       

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