The App-Centric Enterprise

And Why the Web

May Soon Be Obsolete

By Bill French
 The alchemy of smart mobile devices and
the app market model have combined to
produce a seriously compelling value
proposition for business organizations and
consumers. This paper provides insights
into the emerging app-centric world, how it
will influence and integrate with an
increasingly mobile workforce, and why the
Web may soon be obsolete.

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THE APP-CENTRIC ENTERPRISE

INTRODUCTION
In an age of mobility, enterprises are changing in profound ways.

I recently gave a presentation at Mobile Health Expo, and since then, I’ve been
focused on a paper about app-centric healthcare and why mHealth 2.0 is far more
likely to succeed than the first wave of mobile health solutions that date back ten years
or so. Because of this work, I’ve been sensitized concerning the app-centric movement
and why consumers, business people, and even entire organizations are smitten by the
overwhelming and seemingly insatiable need for mobile apps.

APPS – POINT-SOLUTIONS FOR EVERYONE AND EVERY TASK

Through its consumer campaigns, Apple has cemented the idea that there’s an “app
for that” and by “that”, Apple means just about anything you can imagine.

This positioning is taking hold in business, government, religion and everyday lives of
individuals across the globe as the popularity of iPhone, iPodTouch, and now iPad, has
grown rapidly and pervasively since iPhone’s debut in mid-2007. Conceptually and
literally, this positioning has also spilled over to non-Apple environments such as
Android-based phones and devices. App stores are erupting for every viable smart-
device platform and operating system.

Apps have become a meaningful abbreviation for technology that just works. Apps
provide a common and easily understood idea that has been widely accepted as a
solution – indeed a means to get stuff done quickly and effectively. Humans across the
globe see apps as the pathway to achieving objectives, whether simple tasks or
complex processes, and they’ve begun to vote on this model [literally] with gestures of
resounding approval.

Good apps create and sustain long-lasting relationships with users and they find their
way into prominent visibility on their mobile devices. Bad apps are quickly tossed aside
as users exercise real-time [natural] selection for solutions that make life better. Apps
are quickly becoming the life-link between users and businesses – they represent the
brand equity of that relationship and users can assess the benefits of an app at
relatively low costs.

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Consumers are thrilled with the App Market Model.

APP MARKET MODEL

The app market model emerged when Apple first released iPhone in 2007. Steve Jobs’
vision assumed that consumers and developers would benefit most from a powerful
mobile web browser that pervasively supported open web standards. However,
developers had different ideas; they wanted direct access to native elements of the
device through an SDK (software
development kit) and rightly so. Even
today, Web standards and browser Apple has cemented the
technology doesn’t mix all that well with
native device and deep hardware idea that there’s an “app for
features for many reasons that” and by “that”, they
including but not limited to
mean just about anything
security challenges. With
the advent of iPhone (generation 1), you could imagine.
developers desperately wanted the
ability to create optimized apps that
performed as well as Apple’s own pre-installed [native] apps.

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, Inc. agreed and went above and beyond the developer’s
call for more device-level access. Apple provided comprehensive programming
access to iPhone and its wealth of hardware capabilities, but on one condition – all
apps would be reviewed for quality of experience and the distribution and sale of apps
would go through iTunes – the App Store was born.

As global mobile industry analyst Ralf Gordon Jahns describes it in a recent report,

“The first six months in 2008, after the launch of the Apple App Store, proved to
be an Eldorado for developers who quickly jumped on the band-wagon, realizing
amazing downloads numbers for, generally speaking, very simple applications. In
2009 the market swelled with tens of thousands of new apps, making it more and
more difficult for individual apps not to be lost in the long tail. Nonetheless the
mass of developers adhere to IOS as their preferred mobile development and
distribution platform.”

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In 2010, the app market model is now at full throttle with likely many years of growth
ahead.

Mobile vendors have joined the app market model without hesitation. But this success
has little to do with Apple or its vision and everything to do with what customers and
business users want – simple, focused, point solutions that just work. And apps need
to work across two critical dimensions; the ability to purchase and install apps without
friction, and fitness-of-purpose.

WHY THE WEB MAY SOON BE OBSOLETE

When we think of the web, we often think it is synonymous with the Internet. Here are
two scenarios to consider that may help to explain the difference.

Scenario A Scenario B
You wake up and grab your coffee and sit You wake up and reach for your smart
down at your desktop computer ... phone and begin tapping on app icons ...

• You start by launching a web • You start by launching a web

browser
• You open Gmail and check your
email
• You launch your favorite Twitter
application, check for messages,
and let your mother know you’ll
come over for dinner
• You load a new browser window
with Weather.com to see how you
should dress
• You log in to your doctor’s website
and set an appointment to see her
• You’re curious about recent back
pain so you look up some articles
at WebMD.com
• You refill a prescription online at
Target.com
browser
• You open Gmail and check your
email
• You launch your favorite Twitter
application, check for messages,
and let your mother know you’ll
come over for dinner
• You load a new browser window
with Weather.com to see how you
should dress
• You log in to your doctor’s website
and set an appointment to see her
• You’re curious about recent back
pain so you look up some articles
at WebMD.com
• You refill a prescription online at
Target.com

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In scenario “A”, all activities were all performed
on the Web using a Web browser. This is a very It’s more accurate to
familiar model but it should not to be confused
think of your browser
with the Internet. Web site applications such as
Weather.com and WebMD.com run in a bowser plus any given Web site
but utilize the Internet as the communication as an “app” running on
medium. The Internet [metaphorically] the Internet.
represents the pipes, and the content
from these Web applications flow
through the pipes to you.

It’s more accurate to think of your browser plus any given Web site as an “app” running
on the Internet.

You spent the morning on the Internet but never actually used the Web in scenario “B”.
The distinction is subtle but the comparative user experiences are not.

In scenario “B”, you were happily

running mobile “apps” that help you
get things done quickly and efficiently.
The apps you chose for these tasks
are very specific and tend to focus
your activities with economy of
interaction because they were
designed for
mobile use. In
mobile
computing
paradigms,
efficiency is key – user interfaces are simpler and more concise
because they must be. This tends to yield a higher degree of
productivity than broadly designed Web applications and most
important – user satisfaction.

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Aaron Levie sums it up nicely in this recent article, Building the Simple Enterprise.

“Complexity is the culprit, and it takes many forms: tedious processes for
common tasks like HR and expense reports, inability to collaborate beyond the
firewall without IT intervention, and information silos without any security
rationale. Not to mention the bad UI, error messages, upgrade failures, and
downtime that users and IT departments contend with on a daily basis. And while
no one explicitly desires cumbersome technology, we keep buying it because
we’ve built a strong correlation between the number of features a solution has
and the likelihood it will solve our problem.”

For the most part, when it comes to life-tasks or business tasks, no user wants to
spend more time tapping on frustratingly small interfaces and many will say they’d
rather have a large screen where the viewing experience is superior and a comfortable
forgiving keyboard with which to type. But here you are, steps from a desktop or laptop
computer and still, you prefer to use your mobile device for many tasks. Why? Because
app-centric systems simply offer a better approach to getting [certain] stuff done.

Daniel R. Odio raises an interesting reason in this blog post why apps are so attractive
to users,

“... a fundamental tenet of the allure of apps: while you browse the web, you
don’t own the web. Being on the web is a very nomadic experience. You visit
your favorite sites, then you visit other sites, but there’s very little sense of
ownership on the web. An app, by contrast, provides a unit of ownership. You
purchase an app using iTunes. You own that contained experience.”

It’s safe to say that the verdict is in – apps require less typing, less time, and less user
interaction than other computing alternatives. They are sleek and focused point-
solutions. While apps are primarily designed for mobile use, you find them more
appealing even in your office, your home, and at your desk.

THE APP-CENTRIC ENTERPRISE

There’s no doubt that the app market model will continue to provide new and innovative
ways for businesses and large organizations to advance the science of computing.
There will be some bad apps along the way, but the innovation cycle has been greatly

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shortened in this new model, making it more likely that companies can avoid massive
IT failures.

At the heart of this emerging trend is the notion that apps are relevant only in a mobile
context – when you’re away from the office. If you take a few minutes to observe your
own behavior with mobile devices including the somewhat mobile iPad, you’ll discover
that you’re actually [increasingly] using your iPad and smart phone at your desk. It’s
obvious that you’re already depending on it while roaming through the building, in ad-
hoc and casual meetings, at lunch (in the building) and certainly in conference rooms.

Apps are becoming increasingly important in non-mobile and quasi-mobile contexts.

App-centricity in mobile and non-mobile contexts is already an important aspect of
everyday business, and it’s about to flow back across your desktop and laptop.

Ross Rubin recently penned “Switched On: The iPadification of Mac OS” where he
observed,

“Apple’s new MacBook Air was cited as taking on traits associated with the iPad
such as thinness, flash storage, longer battery life, and instant on. But it is the
changes coming in Lion that are inspired by the iPad’s user interface that will
have broader ramifications for the future of all Macs, even desktops.”

EMBRACING THE APP-CENTRIC TREND

Organizations must act quickly to shape their business model implementation
strategies to accommodate the emerging app market model. Mobile app trends are
dramatically impacting customers as well as workers, necessitating stringent
evaluation of internal and external opportunities.

Internally, businesses can begin by reassessing the effect mobile devices are presently
having on its workforce and identify key process areas that can leverage this trend to
business benefit.

Enterprises must consider how influential an Apple-inclusive mobile device strategy

can be to its workforce and its customer base. Embracing the happier side of mobile
computing is a sure success path to creating an enterprise environment that’s seen as
perhaps forward thinking, lighthearted, and more likely to be a creative and enjoyable
place to work. A progressive mobile device policy could sway recruitment success as
well as employee retention goals.

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ROAMBI: A CASE IN POINT
Business intelligence is one segment of enterprise mobility that is growing more rapidly
than others. While all companies can find useful ways to leverage mobile computing
devices for greater operational efficiency, business intelligence is at the core of the
app-centric enterprise.

Roambi, a powerful BI app for iPhone

and iPad, serves as a useful case study
in the emerging app-centric enterprise.
MeLLmo, the company that developed
Roambi, has created a mobile business
intelligence platform that delivers the
most stunning data presentations
available on iPhone and iPad today.
There are simply no apps that compare
to presentation quality and user experience design.

I use Roambi for small business data presentations and mobile delivery requirements
with my clients, as well as in my own [very small] business. The designers at MeLLmo
have slowly and purposefully transitioned its offerings to serve much larger customers
– corporate enterprises. The rate of Roambi’s transition and readiness for large
corporate buyers suggests it was fully intentional from the beginning.

Roambi serves large and small organizations by

compartmentalizing its product and service
layers. Instead of a single monolithic BI app,
common business chart templates separate
logical reporting requirements. The templates
each participate in a unified experience, but it’s
obvious the architecture is well planned.

MeLLmo and its very clever presentation

designers have managed to create a holistic
approach to acquiring, optimizing, and delivering
actionable information to many Fortune 500
companies. This strategy required a significant
investment in cloud services and security
infrastructure to support the breadth and depth of

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enterprise BI requirements. But with a clear vision of mobile BI requirements, the
Roambi team recognized that back-end integration with existing BI products and
services such as IBM’s Cognos and Oracle’s Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition,
required serious planning.

APP STRATEGY
There are many aspects of developing a solid app strategy for workforce or customer
apps, but here are some basic areas to consider.

Design Simplicity! Successful apps are simple and they typically focus on one
important objective; don’t lose sight of that. If it takes more
than a week to design an app, the train is off the rails.
Repeatedly step back to the app’s core objective and
regroup on a daily basis during the design and envisioning
phase of the project.

Limitation Awareness It’s very common for design teams to race ahead of the
limitations of the chosen platform. Device and OS limitations
are real and any attempt to shoehorn in capabilities that are
far beyond the scope of the mobile platform will likely fail.

Process Friction! Remove as much as you can. Whether it’s an e-commerce

app for your customers or an app to let HR know you’re out
sick, the reason certain apps are great is because getting
stuff done requires little effort. Think through the process
carefully and eliminate actions. Do not create the app until
you are certain that every possible process optimization has
been explored and baked into your solution.

User Experience It’s very tempting to create all manner of complex user
interface gestures and navigation with touch-capacitive
screens. Resist this temptation in the early stages of your
app lifecycle. Users need simple and intuitive navigation
gestures to learn how to use your new app without any
training or help. If they have to ask for help or training,
you’ve missed the goal.

Rapid Prototyping Creating an app that users feel is indispensable takes time
and many prototypes. At the outset, build a rinse-repeat

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 cycle into your prototyping time budget. Use agile
engineering models to quickly reshape and experiment with
innovative ideas. Download award-winning and popular
apps to gain additional ideas. Enlist a variety of people to
provide rapid feedback.

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HOW I CAN HELP
Feel free to call me even if it’s just to chat about your app
strategy. I like to get feedback from the trenches and
understand real-world challenges. You can reach me via
email (bill.french@ipadcto.com) or at my Google Voice
number (970.205.9121)

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Perhaps you've done the same, even subliminally.
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