The Real Challenge of Mobile Apps is Real-Time

Can you imagine a scenario where you ask Apple’s Siri a question, and she says, “Can I get back to you in 5 minutes?”  Wouldn’t that be irritating?  Information and requests for information have a shelf life. The information is requested at a specific time for a reason.  If you send me the information in 5 minutes I have probably moved on to something else.

In a recent survey I conducted with 79 participants involved in mobile technologies and projects, 83.7% said they or their clients’ have IT systems that are too slow or incapable of supporting real-time mobile application requirements. That is a problem.

Many organizations are facing a challenging time supporting the real-time data requirements of mobile applications.  They are recognizing that significant work needs to be done inside their complex IT environment to ensure that data queries and reports can be produced instantly for use on mobile applications.  In many organizations upgrading and enhancing their IT ecosystem for mobile applications represents a major investment.  This is driving increased interest in cloud based solutions that often use newer and faster processes, designs and architectures.

Speed of response is important to the mobile user experience.  The speed in which your IT environment can support mobile applications is a competitive differentiator.  As more applications incorporate location, predictive and context aware elements, the speed of supporting IT systems will become even more important to the end user.  No one wants a turn-by-turn navigation system giving driving instructions that are delayed by 30 seconds, “You should have turned back there,” is not an acceptable response for most of us.

Retailers are also increasingly interested in interacting with onsite shoppers via mobile devices.  They want to recognize you, your shopping habits, past purchases and preferences and today’s shopping needs all while you are browsing their aisles.  This requires the ability to collect appropriate data, query databases and share relevant information with both the shoppers and the staff in the store so the customer’s experience is enhanced and the sales optimized.

None of this happens by accident.

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