The
total cost of ownership for mobile applications is driven by four very real and
very important factors that need to be evaluated by any organization seeking to
deploy an enterprise grade application.
The
Four Factors:
- Development
- Deployment
- Maintenance
- Upgrades
of applications over time
With
every new technological development in the mobile industry, users become more
demanding and corporations increasingly rely on mobile applications to serve
key roles in customer service, sales force automation, field services and
direct marketing. The following factors should be considered in order to
estimate the TCO over time of any mobile initiative:
- Cost of
developing a single application for a single device type – i.e. the cost
required to develop a marketing application for only the iPhone
- Continued
support, upgrades and administration of an application
- Expansion
of an application to multiple device types and/or device platforms – i.e. a
sales force automation application that works on BlackBerrys and developing it
for the iPhone as well
- Development
of additional applications for other user groups – i.e. take your sales force
automation application (which is your first app) and integrate it with account
data to build an app that gives clients access to their own account information
(two), then use account activity and transaction information to power a
marketing application that incentivizes clients to drive more business to your
firm (three). And don't forget your managers and executives - they need an app
that takes sales data and rolls it up into performance reports.
Cost of
developing a single application for a single device type:
The
costs are straight forward and somewhat simple to estimate depending upon
whether or not a company decides to outsource development or build an
application in house. There are plenty of boutique firms that companies can
hire to develop a custom application and they will quote a price up front based
on the scope of the project.Alternatively, a company can develop a mobile
application in house. This would mean that the cost is based primarily on
internal operating costs with marginal budget required for hardware. What is
the best approach for your company? Before allocating resources to the
development of a single application for one device type, like many companies
have done with iPhone apps, consider your long term mobile needs. A company
should ask itself these questions:
- Is this
the only mobile application we're going to develop?
- What
about other device types?
- If
we’re developing an iPhone app, should we make it available on Android (the
operating system by Google)? And what about BlackBerry since it still holds 42%
of the US market?
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