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FeedHenry, has analysed customer data and industry RFPs from organisations with more than 1,000 employees and identified five myths surrounding the building of enterprise mobile apps in today's mobile-first world.

Read a more detailed overview of these 5 myths here... 

Cathal McGloin, CEO of mobile enterprise app developer FeedHenry takes on the role of myth buster as he debunks a few false beliefs regarding mobile development across the enterprise.

This is following the mobile app platform provider analysed customer data and industry RFPs from organisations with more than 1,000 employees.

Myth #1:  Enterprise apps take at least six months to develop and deploy

Industry received wisdom dictates that apps, especially those designed for enterprise, can take at least half a year to build and launch. With some organisations requiring anywhere from 10-100 apps to serve different business units, the time required to build apps can appear prohibitive. However, the right mobile platform can halve app development time to just 60-90 days. The key is to reuse code and backend services where possible in order to speed integration.

Myth #2:  Data is king, but it's too complicated for apps to access legacy systems

Enterprise organisations that have already made large investments in systems, such as ERP, are hesitant to develop mobile apps that cannot seamlessly plug into existing mission-critical technologies. On average, a suite of enterprise apps connects to between 2 and 6 backend systems and APIs, including Sharepoint, Oracle, MySQL and SAP. Because 2 in 3 of these backend systems do not have accessible APIs, this can slow down the development process or make mobile apps unusable. Using an enterprise-grade mobile backend as a service (MBaaS) with an API infrastructure solves this issue by enabling legacy systems to be easily accessed by mobile devices.

Myth #3: Mobile app developers must keep up with a myriad of coding languages and frameworks – it's impossible

Learning new development languages in order to build individual apps for each device platform can be tedious, and for some enterprises entails constantly hiring fresh developers with different skill sets. According to Forrester, when creating hybrid cross-platform apps, developers often employ as many as 10 different coding languages for enterprise app development projects. Common coding languages required include HTML5, JavaScript, Objective C, C#, Sencha Touch and Node.js. and these don't even include languages proprietary to traditional MEAP platforms. To simplify development, developers can use mobile app platforms using a "Bring Your Own Toolkit" approach that allows them to use the languages and toolkits they are most comfortable with.

Myth #4: Enterprise apps are always data-heavy, placing high loads on handsets and backend systems

The best mobile app platforms take large amounts of data from the backend and transmit a small filtered set of data to the handset: reducing overall demands. For each enterprise app session, the size of data transferred for each app should be less than 1MB.

Myth #5: Having a "Chief of Mobility" is the best way to handle company-wide app development

This myth assumes that one central figure will successfully oversee app development and deployment across the enterprise. In reality, the average enterprise mobile app development project requires at least 20 personnel, including business heads, developers, project managers, IT and employees. By collaborating and using the same technology standards and requirements, a Mobile Centre of Excellence or Mobile Steering Committee can guide mobile projects across multiple business units without creating new silos.

Today's technology allows for the swift creation of apps without vendor lock-in should take advantage of the new technologies at their disposal. Agile, open, collaborative and powerful cloud-based mobile application platforms now render obsolete long-held notions around lengthy and complex app development and deployment.

Check out FeedHenry's infographic that outlines these 5 myths here!

FeedHenry, who are a next-generation provider of cloud based mobile enterprise applications have recently announced a technology partnership with AirWatch which could prove to be significant for the field service industry.

AirWatch themselves are one of the leading Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) providers with a solid track record within the industry, whilst the relatively young Feed Henry have already established a strong reputation after a number of successful projects involving the creation of mobile enterprise applications, including developing a large number of apps for different elements of the network rail group which saw the transportation giant improve field service efficiency dramatically.

Working together the two companies will provide a joint solution, which will enable the simple and rapid creation of mobile enterprise applications which will be able to be immediately deployed and managed within the AirWatch app catalogue.

AirWatch CEO John Marshall commented;

“IT organisations often need to develop, deploy and maintain mobile applications quickly and securely to accelerate business opportunities and promote employee productivity,”

“FeedHenry’s platform integration with AirWatch provides enterprises the ability to secure their mobile devices and to simplify app development with connectivity to backend systems through RESTful APIs in the cloud.”

By integrating with AirWatch, Feed Henry’s Mobile Application Platform enables companies to develop, integrate and secure mobile enterprise applications as well as content on mobile devices, whilst giving IT departments the ability to manage policies and provide access controls at the enterprise level.

Feed Henry CEO Cathal McGloin comments:

“The integration of our next generation Mobile Application Platform with AirWatch’s EMM solution now gives enterprises secure device management, along with the ability to develop, host and manage native, hybrid and HTML5 applications,”

“Most mobile enterprise deployments have been focused on the development of one off, tactical applications for specific groups of employees or customers. Increasingly however, organisations are looking towards more advanced mobilisation of a broader set of assets and back-end data sets. We believe that agile, cloud-based mobile application platforms, alongside MDM solutions, will play an important role in this enablement.”

The benefits that Feed Henry can offer to AirWatch users include simplifying and securing the connectivity of apps with any enterprise systems through Feed Henry’s ‘mobile backend as-a-service’ and accelerating development cycles and go to market by deploying apps to the device server-side code to the cloud – whether it is public, private or hybrid with just one push.

Developers can also now publish apps and make them AirWatch enabled seamlessly whilst being able to push app updates to all enrolled devices on the AirWatch MDM platform and enterprises are able to monitor and tack all newly created apps via the AirWatch console.

Find out more about mobile enterprise application and field service software providers including case studies, videos and other resources in our online directory here.