ISVs: 5 Things to Consider

When Deploying Applications

to Mobile

Extending Applications

to Mobile with Multi-

Platform

Contents

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 1

1 Mobile: Why ISVs Need to Take Notice ......................................................................................... 1

The Importance of Context ................................................................................................................ 2

Addressing BYOD............................................................................................................................... 2

2 What Devices Should be Supported? ............................................................................................. 4

3 What Deployment Approach to Take ............................................................................................. 5

Native Language Deployment ......................................................................................................... 5

Hybrid Approach ............................................................................................................................... 5

Web Approach .................................................................................................................................. 5

4 Develop or Use a Platform? ............................................................................................................ 7

Develop .............................................................................................................................................. 7

Using a Platform (MEAP) .................................................................................................................. 7

5 Where to Extend an Application to Mobile within the Enterprise ................................................ 9

Summary ............................................................................................................................................ 11

About Magic Software Enterprises .................................................................................................. 12

1

Introduction

Mobile technology is having a major impact on the way we communicate, interact socially, and

conduct our lives. The purpose of this white paper is explain why it is important for ISVs to be

aware of the impact mobile technology is having, and how it may change many ISV’s technology

offering.

What devices should be supported and how to select the most suitable delivery mechanism are

discussed as well as whether to undertake a significant development effort or use a mobile

enterprise application platform (MEAP) to deliver applications to mobile are considered.

Finally an example has been included; showing the ease with Mobile Application Platforms can be

used to extend existing software solutions to mobile, delivering a business process that is both easy

to use and to access from multiple mobile devices.

1 Mobile: Why ISVs Need to Take Notice

Smart Mobile technology really does look set to be the Fifth Major Technology wave. The first

major technology wave was the rise of the mainframe, which became prevalent in the sixties and

had a dramatic impact on business processes which continues to this day. This was followed in

turn by the mini-computer, which addressed a larger market, was more affordable and easier to

use. The third major wave was the PC with which we are all very familiar with! The fourth was of

course the internet, which again had a dramatic impact on the business world and how we work,

shop, socialise and interact.

Each wave has constituted an order of magnitude of growth over the previous one, demonstrated

by the fact that mainframes measured in the hundreds of thousands whereas there are estimated

to be 1.4 billion PCs in the world today (Gartner). Right now there are 6 billion mobile

subscribers in world and it’s growing.

Perhaps of even greater interest is the fact that we may be looking at a technology that is growing

faster than any other in history. It took landlines nearly a hundred years to reach saturation,

whereas mobile technology reached saturation within twenty years and smartphones are set to do

so in less than ten years. Tablets are growing at an even faster rate, within 18 months of the iPad

launch 11% of US households had one and Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Samsung’s Galaxy are set

to accelerate tablet market penetration.

Today most ISVs are aware that applications need to be designed to accommodate mobile

technology, although some are limited to specific device types. From a competitive point of view it

is important to embrace a mobile strategy that minimises development effort yet encompasses the

current range of mobile devices (and ideally future technologies). It’s sort of the same logic as in a

Windows era, who’s going to offer DOS applications?

2

The Importance of Context

We are all used to desk top applications, with the ability to move rapidly between windows.

However, when it comes to mobile, it is impracticable to deploy a desktop screen to a mobile

device and in fact it just won’t get used. When it comes to interacting with mobile device it is all

about context. By that we mean that it is very important to consider in what context a device is to

be used, in other words how each technology fits within the workplace, and how employees will

use different devices to fulfil their requirements. On one side, there are the familiar laptops, which

are primarily designed for 'heavy duty' computing tasks in the office environment, thanks to their

processing power and the large screen sizes which provide the flexibility for users to move quickly

between different screens.

On the other Smartphones are most commonly used for shorter tasks, to quickly check for emails

whilst running between meetings. Smartphone users, by nature of how they use the device, tend to

have a shorter attention span than users of desktop applications as they tend to require access

when they are in a hurry and when time is of the essence.

Tablets sit somewhere in the middle; whilst they offer more scope for data input and processing

thanks to their larger screen size, their form factor means that they are also portable and so can

easily be used in meetings. This means that in each situation, the data being looked at, the length

of time they are used, and the levels of interaction by the user, are completely different. These key

factors all need to be taken into consideration when one is designing applications aimed at

Smartphones and Tablets.

Therefore when it comes to Smart phone and Tablet options, a holistic multi channel view should

be taken as to what is ultimately required. It is important to think how to create the same

experience in terms of look and feel, but design the input around the peculiarities of the form

factor. Designing each application taking into account what can be done with one hand on a

Smartphone and what can be done with two hands on a Tablet and what kind of processes are

needed. This approach is required in order to build a truly effective enterprise mobility strategy.

Addressing BYOD

The first ‘convergent’ device to be released was the Blackberry in 2003, which supported push

emails, text, web browsing and of course mobile phone. Business was quick to realise the benefits

this offered; providing employees the ability to communicate and access email, calendars etc.

whilst on the move, and so organisations themselves implemented a mobile strategy, installing

Blackberry Enterprise Servers and equipping employees with BlackBerrys. And so it continued for

the IT department during the mid 2000s, maintaining control of the applications and device types

and of course access to the enterprise.

That has now changed because of the vision of entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs, Mark

Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey.

3

The iPhone arrived in 2007 and at the same time social media began to make an entrance; the

following year Facebook had 100 million users (on its way to today’s 900 million) and Twitter was

taking off. Tablets have since followed, arriving in 2010 with the launch of the iPad, followed by

alternatives such as the first Samsung Galaxy.

What’s happened now is that given the experience of always being in touch wherever they are, the

’always on’ employees expect and demand access to applications from anywhere at any time.

Executives want to use their iPads in the board room. The capabilities and the convenience that

smart phones and tablets offer have indeed led to the consumerisation of IT. This in turn has led

organisations to adopt a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy, allowing employees to use the

device of their preference. And of course there are sound commercial benefits in doing so!

What was once the domain of the IT department is now driven by the employees themselves! One

effect of the consumerisation of IT has been the demise of tablets designed and targeted at

enterprises such as HP’s Touch Pad and Cisco’s Cius which were not able to offer consumers what

they want at the right price. Those companies who have not adapted to the new model are hurting

as evidenced by HPs latest round of redundancies.

The adoption of BYOD is widespread, as shown in a recent Cisco survey where, of 600

companies surveyed, 95% have a BYOD policy and 35% actually provide IT support.

4

2 What Devices Should be Supported?

It is clear that the mobile supplier market is in a state of flux, at the moment and for the

foreseeable future, Apple is the dominant player. Android own the largest operating system share

but in itself is deceptive as the majority of Android development majority of development has been

on ‘Gingerbread’ (64%) and the second most used version is its predecessor ‘Froyo’ with 23%.

Since then we have had ‘Honeycomb’, ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ and now 4 .1 –‘Jelly Bean’. Nokia

are in trouble, the Jury is out on Windows 8 Mobile and of course Blackberry whilst still a major

player is declining. Yet the market is growing and needs to be addressed. So let’s look at the state

of play in the UK:

Source: StatCounter As the above graph shows, the main operating systems are iOS, Android and BlackBerry.

Windows 8 is now entering the market and may need to be accommodated in any mobile

solution.

Key operating systems therefore are:

iOS

Android

BlackBerry

Windows 8

It is clear that to be successful, when extending an application to mobile devices; all of these

operating systems need to be supported.

5

3 What Deployment Approach to Take

To create an application to be deployed on a mobile device there are four options available:

Native language

Hybrid apps (Native code with HTML and JavaScript)

Web approach (HTML 5 and JavaScript)

Mobile middleware platforms

Native Language Deployment

The advantage of deploying in a native language is that it provides a more suitable look and feel

to the use, and therefore will be more readily adopted. However to support multiple device types,

knowledge and support for at least 4 client languages are required:

iOS for iPhones and iPads: Objective C (proprietary scripting mixed with C)

Blackberry devices: J2ME (incomplete and inconsistent implementations of MIDP 2.0)

Android devices: J2SE (incompatible with iOS and Blackberry)

Windows based devices: Windows 8 (JavaScript, HTML5)

To further complicate the matter different versions of these languages exist and are continually

released for example there are considerable differences between Windows 6.5, Windows 7 and

Windows 8, not to mention the ‘flavours’ of Android.

Therefore this approach will require of multiple skill sets and the challenge of maintaining them.

Hybrid Approach

A hybrid approach has the benefit that an HTML application can be wrapped as a means of

delivering to end users and app stores. But the disadvantage of skills requirement as above and

the security issues associated with the current status of HTML5.

Web Approach

HTML5 is widely expected to become the technology of choice for future mobile application

development, as mobile platforms become increasingly fragmented HTML5 is the latest iteration of

the HTML standard, used for building and deploying web content.

While previous versions of HTML were designed primarily for marking up text-based content,

HTML5 is much more interactive, allowing web developers to take advantage of new capabilities

such as 3D graphics rendering and gesture control without the need for plug-ins.

6

Most smartphones and tablets now come with built-in browsers, allowing developers to create

sophisticated HTML5 applications that can be deployed on multiple platforms, rather than having

to build separate versions for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and so on. HTML5 can

also be used to build hybrid applications, which be used to build hybrid applications, which

behave like native apps but have HTML5 inside.

Developing for multiple mobile platforms means learning the native language of different vendors,

each of whom has a completely different stack, different testing, different development paradigms

and processes; so the cost of developing multiple platforms natively is substantial.

However, this does not mean the technology is ready for every implementation and, in particular,

issues around security, synchronicity and the fact that it is an evolving standard can make it

an unsuitable option for ISVs.

However the real issue with HTML5 is that it is still HTML. This means that it is open to many of the

same security vulnerabilities as previous iterations of the standard, including SQL injection, which

is the number one risk to web applications.

This technology was not built to take data from an enterprise and try to use that on the go. It was

designed around content display, more to do with the viewing of pages, an organisational portal

etc. It is not really designed well for a transaction-based area.

Furthermore, it needs a large amount of bandwidth in order to synchronise the downloading and

refreshing of different objects. If bandwidth is constrained – as is often the case when using 3G

networks during peak hours or when signal is week – objects can become misaligned. Take for

example, a Facebook tag of someone might appear on the wrong photo.

The implications of this can be particularly worrying in a business context. For example, if a

business manager using a purchase order approval app on a mobile device receives the request

to approve or reject a PO before the cost breakdown comes through, he could end up approving

it without full knowledge of the facts.

7

4 Develop or Use a Platform?

Develop

This can be said to be the least attractive and least practical option for an ISV.

As previously mentioned, the large number of skill sets required would need to be provided and

continually maintained.

Integration of various applications would typically be required, each mobile device catered for and

communications and security issues addressed.

This approach entails high development and maintenance costs and lacks a visual development

tool for rapid application design.

This is an option that generally implemented for industry specific applications on specialised

devices.

Using a Platform (MEAP)

Mobile Enterprise Application Platforms overcome the difficulties of developing mobile software by

managing the diversity of devices, networks and user groups at the time of deployment and

throughout the solution’s lifecycle. They provide high level languages that allow rapid mobile

application development taking care of the mobile technology. Mobile Application Platforms are a

comprehensive, long-term approach to deploying mobility. This approach is particularly attractive

when support for cross platform deployment is required.

MEAPs provide the ability to develop a mobile application once and deploy it to multiple mobile

device types.

8

Gartner’s ‘rule of 3’ recommends MEAPS when an organisations requirement is to:

1. Support three or more mobile applications

2. Support three or more mobile operating systems (OS)

3. Integrate with at least three back-end data sources

The two components of most MEAP solutions are a middleware integration server and a mobile

client server. The middle ware component can be used to integrate an ISV’s application with

customer’s applications, taking care of cross platform support as well as security. The mobile client

server allows for the rapid development and deployment of the mobile presentation layer across

multiple device types.

The two components combined provides the ability to combine applications as required creating

the business process and deploying a range of mobile device types in a format that is easy for the

user to utilise.

The key benefits of MEAPs are:

Cross platform support to rapidly create the required business process

Repository based, allows use of existing code

Write once deploy to many device types

Rapid development

Ability to implement change quickly to adapt to changing business needs

Simplifies deployment

Native deployment providing more suitable look and feel

Greatly reduces number of skills required

MEAPs are clearly an option to be considered when looking at cross platform, multi-device

application requirements.

9

5 Where to Extend an Application to Mobile within

the Enterprise

There are numerous opportunities to use mobile device within most organisations, particularly

where gains are to be made by bringing processes to the location where they can be most

effective: for example a doctor accessing any and all relevant material regarding a patient’s

record and diagnosis.

In general, however, the introduction of mobile can bring immediate benefits:

In customer facing environments

Field support operations

Executive authorisation processes

As an example executives may need to authorise multiple items involving multiple applications,

these could be purchase requests, timesheets, expenses etc. It is a simple matter to consolidate

this and provide a consolidated view.

Let’s take one of these, a purchase request as an example of how a mobile process can be readily

implemented.

Creating the Desired Workflow

In this example a PR is received by the ERP system, we then trigger a workflow to provide the

necessary information to process the request. Using the backend studio, work flows can be created

in a simple graphical drag and drop manner.

In this case the process is to:

- Check if request has been budgeted for in the ERP system

- Determine available budget

- Access the CRM system for sales to date

10

The presentation layer is created in the graphical front end studio which enables the required

information to be presented to the mobile device.

Presentation Layer – Graphical Studio

The application shown here can be deployed to iOS, Android and BlackBerry devices.

What is important to note is that with one development effort’ multiple platforms are supported.

The executive can look at this at any time, or be alerted by text or email when a PR is raised

depending on how the business requirement.

The relevant information is presented in a format that easy to read and use, in this case, the PRs

requiring authorisation are shown with their relative values and who generated them. It is a simple

matter to drill down and get the details provided by the business process.

If satisfied with the relevant information etc. the executive can approve the PR there and then.

The process is fully automated and decisions can be made anytime and of course from anywhere!

11

An Easy to Use and Efficient Process

This was a simple process to set up and of course can be readily modified should there be any

change required within the process to accommodate additional logic, access to other systems etc.

Summary

It is clear that ISVs intent on accelerating their business performance must incorporate enterprise

mobility as a fundamental component of their strategic plans. With the proliferation of

smartphones and mobile platforms that support enterprise mobility, ISVs need to be able to

develop device‐independent and future proof business solutions for fast, simple, and cost‐effective

mobile deployment.

When considering deploying applications to mobile for a specific requirements or niche market to

specialised devices then developing in a specific native language may well be a practical option.

However the reality is that for ISVs who are looking to deploy new and extend existing applications

to multiple mobile devices, wish to remain focussed on their core, strategic product offering, then

MEAPs are clearly the most cost effective and productive way forward

12

About Magic Software Enterprises

Magic Software Enterprises (NASDAQ: MGIC) empowers customers and partners around the globe with

smarter technology that provides a multi-channel user experience of enterprise logic and data.

We draw on 30 years of experience, millions of installations worldwide, and strategic alliances with global IT

leaders, including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce.com, and SAP, to enable our customers to seamlessly

adopt new technologies and maximize business opportunities.

For more information, visit www.magicsoftware.com.

Magic is a registered trademark of Magic Software Enterprises Ltd. All other product and company names mentioned herein are for

identification purposes only and are the property of, and might be trademarks of, their respective owners.

Magic Software Enterprises has made every effort to ensure that the information contained in this document is accurate; however, there

are no representations or warranties regarding this information, including warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular

purpose. Magic Software Enterprises assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions that may occur in this document. The information

in this document is subject to change without prior notice and does not represent a commitment by Magic Software Enterprises or its

representatives.