UVTimes

Here are the five questions you should answer before you start taking your business to mobile.

1. Why do you want to bring your enterprise software to mobile?

Is your concept based on Mobile or are you bringing an existing business to mobile. If it is an existing business you should analyze how going mobile can help you.

2. Will it significantly affect the Product/ Productivity/ Profit/ Popularity?

Mobile development should significantly affect you or your users in one of the mentioned ways. It might make your product user friendly, make the users more efficient. Or It may increase your popularity and profits. Though investment is not big, taking account of the ROI is a good idea.

3. What smartphone devices will your users have?

Mostly all Smart phones provide similar features. Some basic pointers are if you want to access high-end professionals, business people, Doctors, CEOs, Vice-Prez they are mostly (RIM) BlackBerry and Windows Mobile users. While if you are looking at young populace iPhone and Android are gaining popularity. If you are planning to provide devices and software to your own employees or associates, you will need to consider other criterion based on your exact need and budget.

4. Will your application be Native or Web-based?

Native applications are applications that are downloaded on the device and are accessible by clicking the applications icon on the device.

Web application on the other hand are simply the Websites optimized for use on mobile.

You need to carefully understand the differences in the two types and decide on one or both. Typically if you would just want to extend your website to mobile you can get it optimized as a web app. If, in the other case, you are convinced that having a Native app will affect your Productivity/Profit/Popularity.

5. Which smart phone feature(s) can you leverage?

Smart phones have features like Camera, GPS, Touch Screen, WiFi, eMail, USB and VGA Connector, accelerometer. You should acquaint yourself with these and try to find out how you can leverage some or all of these features to your benefit. For example GPS can provide you with your location and speed with which you are traveling. Accelerometer can jazz up your application by utilizing quick movements of user. Touch screen can be used to implement various gestures and make your application pleasantly interactive for the user.