Web May Be Ultimate Mobile Platform

While Google (NSDQ: GOOG), Nokia (NYSE: NOK), and Palm take different approaches to the mobile space, executives from each company agreed that the mobile Web will play a significant role in future application development.

At the MobileBeat 2009 conference in San Francisco Thursday, the companies discussed what makes up a winning mobile platform. The executives agreed that the most important thing was ensuring the end user has a good experience with apps, as well as making the platform attractive to developers.

Mobile program makers are facing an increasingly fragmented world, as the smartphone space consists of Apple's iPhone, Google's Android, Nokia's S60 Symbian, Microsoft's Windows Mobile, Research In Motion (NSDQ: RIMM)'s BlackBerry, and Palm's webOS. Additionally, most content creators also have to make apps for the various versions of J2ME if they want to reach a broad audience of feature phone users.

Vic Gundotra, Google's VP of engineering, said even the search giant isn't rich enough to support this many platforms at a sustainable rate over the long term. Gundotra said the Web will become a strong mobile development platform as things like HTML 5 and offline improvements become standardized.

"We've decided to look to the future, and what we see happening is a move to incredibly powerful browsers," said Gundotra. "What that does for our costs is stunning."

Of course, Google also has other interests in pushing the continued adoption of the mobile Web, as more people online will mean more potential users of its Web services, as well as more revenue for its dominant Web advertising platform. But competitors Nokia and Palm echoed similar sentiments about the power of the mobile Web for apps.

Palm has probably taken the most aggressive stance in this Web-centric model for apps, as its recently released webOS was built from the ground up with Internet connectivity in mind. The company also made its Mojo software development kit available to the masses, and Palm said it uses standard Web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Palm is hoping to attract millions of Web developers, even those with little or no experience with mobile devices.

Michael Abbott, Palm's senior VP of application software and services, said Palm is pushing this Web-centric approach beyond its company. The company's SDK enables developers to access the phone's accelerometer using only JavaScript, and Abbott said Palm is pushing to make this a standard in HTML 5, or in future standards. With this in place, content creators could potentially write a platform-agnostic app with motion controls that's delivered through any capable mobile browser.

While it doesn't get the buzz or attention that iPhone or Android gets, Nokia is still the dominant player in smartphones with roughly 41% of the global market. Tero Ojanpera, Nokia's executive VP of services, said this Web-centric view could be hindered by the lack of unlimited data plans for many customers around the globe, but he agreed that the underlying operating system is becoming less important than the layers on top, including those delivered through the browser.

The company is a big backer of the Qt framework, which is an application and user interface framework based on C++ that enables developers to write programs for multiple platforms with little adjustments. Qt is used by many big Web developers like Google, Opera, Last.fm, and others. Ojanpera hinted that Nokia will soon be bringing this to "the next level," but did not elaborate.

This vision of Web applications dominating the market is nothing new, as Apple CEO Steve Jobs originally said all of the iPhone's programs were going to be Web-based ones using mobile Safari. The developer community was severely disappointed by this though, and the iPhone did not really hit critical mass until a full SDK was released and the App Store was implemented. These native apps have done extremely well for the touch-screen smartphone, as iPhone users have downloaded more than 1.5 billion apps in about a year.

Gundotra said the timing and technologies just weren't right for what Jobs envisioned, and he points to the innovations like geolocation and strong JavaScript support that are just making their way into desktop browsers as a sign of where mobile browsers are headed.

"Jobs had it right from the beginning," said Gundotra. "Maybe instead of 'There's an app for that,' it should be 'There's a bookmark for that.'"

[informationweek]

Mobile Web or Mobile Application Which way to go?

Enterprise mobility is now moving from the early adopter stage to become a mainstream focus for enterprises and their IT departments. Enterprises are beginning to understand how they can use mobile technologies to improve business process and optimize their mobile worker performance.

Factually, lots of enterprises are in dilemma in terms of choosing a right option a mobile website or a downloadable application that run on the handsets. The best answer is, it depends on what the enterprise wants to accomplish.

Web applications traditionally have been valued for its ease of distribution; faster release cycle, decreased barrier to entry etc. Coming to mobile, web development has long suffered from a rigid platform and the inability for mobile browser to keep up with current web technologies. With many handset manufacturer attempting to clone the iPhones usability and appeal, the mobile web applications are getting better, the browser more robust and the devices more capable in terms of supporting Javascript and other web technologies such AJAX, flash etc.

The mobile web allows you to develop on a single platform and target the broadest set of handsets. On the flip side, the mobile web application cannot access the advanced features of the phones such as contact list, location information, camera, bluetooth etc. The interfaces on mobile websites are quite poor and clunky resulting in less than desirable user experience due to browser fragmentation and varied form factors. For better usability, vendors such asVolantis ( News - Alert) (Multi-channel Server), Mobileaware (Mobile Interaction server) etc. have come up with middleware that manages rendering of web pages to different devices based on device capabilities.

If enterprise has an existing high traffic web destination, developing a mobile version makes sense as site already has a brand attached to it and loyal followers.

Today's mobile handsets are more than just a phone and improved native capabilities of phone can be better utilized with smart client mobile applications. The mobile application provides ability to better control user interactions and user interface via possible inputs such as touch, voice, keyboard etc. The smaller footprint of database allows user to store reasonable amount of data directly on handset giving offline functionality to user. The offline functionality, the important differentiator, could become a major decision factor for enterprises in deciding which way to go.

Mobile device fragmentation at platform, device, firmware and operator level may lead to further confusion for enterprises to choose best suit for their business needs. Additionally, the porting efforts to other platforms and testing applications on physical handset add to overall cost of developing rich mobile application when compared to web site development.

If enterprise has need of extensive data management and interactive user experience on device and also requires access to device functionalities such as location, contact list etc., developing mobile application makes sense.

In conclusion, if enterprise is targeting the mobility to reach out to their customers- a wider audience, mobile web may be better choice compared to native application development, as they do not have a direct control over the mobile devices, personal devices being used by them. If enterprises are thinking of improving the business process or optimizing the mobile workers performance, mobile application would be better choice as enterprise are in better position to manage and control the devices. And, if enterprise believe in mobility as a strong medium for marketing, business process improvement and operational efficiencies, consider investing in both mobile application and mobile friendly web site to utilize the best of these two technologies.

[callcenterinfo.tmcnet.com]