Building a future-proof mobile strategy. As device choices proliferate for consumers, and enterprises embrace the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) ethic, organisations need a mobile strategy founded on a flexible and future-proof platform strategy. Marmalade's CTO Tim Closs has lived in this fragmented and fast-evolving landscape for many years in both the pre-iPhone and post-iPhone eras, and provides a presentation looking at the challenges, choices and effective solutions facing CIOs and CTOs today

1. Building a future-proof
mobile platform strategy
Tim Closs
CTO, Marmalade

2. Where to?
18-Apr-13 ©2012 Marmalade. Trademarks belong to their respective owners. All rights reserved. 2

3. Marmalade and Ciklum
• Working together since summer 2011
• Core team of 13: software engineers, test engineers, PM
• Use Project Office for app porting projects
• CIS sales head
18-Apr-13

4. What do we mean by mobile platform?
“A mechanism for enabling mobile interaction with your business”
Could cover any or all of:
• Applications
• Documents
• Email
• Web content (e.g. intranet)
• Media (video, audio)
18-Apr-13

5. Standard content, standard platforms
Documents
SaaS such as Google Docs; existing mobile clients.
Email
Cloud platforms such as Exchange, Google Apps, IMAP; existing mobile
clients.
Web content (e.g. intranet)
Device browser, standard firewall controls.
Media (video, audio)
Through browser.
Standard. Future-proof.
18-Apr-13

6. Applications
The richest way of driving mobile interaction with your business.
This is the key platform area to solve.
• Need to provision my apps across devices
• Need my app to deliver a good user experience
• Need my app to be scalable across users
• Need my app to run across different devices
• Need my app to be efficiently developed and updated
• Need my app to be secure
• Need my app to have high availability
• Need all of these to be future-proof in a fast-moving landscape
18-Apr-13

7. Applications: Provisioning
B2C – use standard app stores.
B2B – use standard app stores!
• iOS Developer Enterprise Program
• Google Play Private Channel
• BlackBerry App World Enterprise
18-Apr-13

8. Applications: Dual Personality
For BYOD, can employees keep their
consumer and corporate worlds distinct?
• BlackBerry Balance /
Secure Work Space
• Extension to BES 10 (BlackBerry
Enterprise Service 10)
• Supports iOS, Android, BlackBerry 10…
features differ
18-Apr-13

9. Applications: Secure and Available
• Client-side data security supported by OS.
• Communication security through standard comms protocols.
• Server-side security through standard web services.
Standard. Future-proof.
18-Apr-13

10. Applications: The real platform issue…
How to balance all of these:
• Need my app to deliver a good user experience
• Need my app to run across different devices
• Need my app to be efficiently developed and updated
18-Apr-13

11. Applications: The server side
• Standard web servers and databases.
• Standard client-server protocols.
• SaaS vendors with mobile-tailored offerings.
Standard. Future-proof.
BaaS (“Back-End as a Service”) platforms … Parse, Kinvey, Cocoafish (Appcelerator)
18-Apr-13

12. Applications: The client side
Native SDKs
Marmalade
Performance
Xamarin
Appcelerator
PhoneGap /
Hybrid
HTML5
Standards-based Proprietary
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13. Applications: Client-side decision tree
Do I need platform-native UI widgets?
NO YES
Assume prefer a single codebase Do I need a single codebase?
NO YES
Prefer standards or UX? Preferred language?
Standards UX JavaScript C#
HTML5 / Marmalade Appcelerator Xamarin
PhoneGap
Native SDKs
18-Apr-13

14. Summary
“A mechanism for enabling mobile interaction with your business”
• Apps are the interesting problem to solve
• Server-side largely dealt with: web standards, and BaaS vendors
• Client-side presents a decision tree that varies with your needs.
Thanks.
tim@marmalademail.com
www.madewithmarmalade.com
18-Apr-13