Interfaces, Connections and Conversations: A Perspective on APPFORUM2014 from the Industry Thought Leaders at RhoMobile

For developers looking to support multiple platforms while using their web skills, cross-platform development continues to rank high as a top strategy. This is why getting face time with the developer community occupies a top spot on the RhoMobile team’s strategy list—so we can ensure developers are getting the most from our RhoMobile platform. It’s one of the main reasons that the RhoMobile team is committed to sponsoring and presenting at Motorola Solutions’ upcoming APPFORUM2014. Because this is the event where developers will be gathering in a few weeks, to meet and greet and share the kind of direct feedback that really shapes the future of a product.

When you get right down to brass tacks, some of the biggest value to be derived from AppForum isn’t only about the (admittedly excellent) presentations that our team members will deliver. It’s also about the conversations that we’ll get to have, the one-on-one interactions in the hallway after a session or over drinks at one of the social events, when conference participants tell stories about their successes. Even better, it’s a perfect opportunity for us to learn what the RhoMobile team can do to make a developer’s life easier. We’re always after that particular brand of gold-star feedback that comes directly from the horse’s mouth, and we expect to receive it in spades throughout our time at AppForum.

It’s always interesting to witness how creative developers are, especially when they are challenged by the type of sea change taking place in the shipping lanes where Windows Mobile/Desktop, Android, and iOS converge. Give developers some tools to build anything, and they will quickly figure out how to connect the dots to create a killer application that truly solves real-world problems. Some have decided to embrace a truly native path, and that choice may be best for them. But there remains a huge group out there who have invested themselves in becoming web gurus and JavaScript ninjas; these developers have realized that these skills are not limited to being in static websites and that they can be re-used to build native applications without much effort. These native hybrid applications are really becoming indistinguishable from native apps. The UIs have become more flat and cleaner so that it’s no longer necessary to put a tremendous amount of content all in one page in order for all of that information to remain easily accessible via off-screen content, touch-based gestures, and interfaces. RhoMobile continues to provide an avenue to developers with web skills who are looking to deliver applications on Windows Mobile/Desktop, Android, and iOS by giving them what essentially amounts to a mini web server running on a device with special APIs that hook into device capabilities that a standard browser cannot provide.

To position itself to be ready for whatever is coming down the pike from platform and enterprise standpoints, RhoMobile has been architected to take advantage of the latest capabilities that HTML5 and Webkit have to offer. These device capabilities can easily be plugged into the framework to so users may take advantage of new device features from Day 1 of a product’s release. And although we are seeing more and more consumer influence into the enterprise, it is the enterprise feature set that still

tends to be unique. Developers typically cannot find interfaces from consumer-focused developer frameworks that they can tap into in order to take advantage of these enterprise features. RhoMobile is Enterprise First—it is mission critical that we provide new enterprise capabilities with every release. We welcome the opportunity to share a bit of this conversation with you at AppForum too.

As we look back upon the not-very-distant origins of enterprise mobility, the virtual explosion of apps that has occurred in the development world should generate very little surprise. Many amounted to nothing more than mere flashes in the application pan because they solved a niche need. Others failed because the quality was very low, (an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence stemming from the shockingly low entry barrier that a developer can easily pass to gain entry to the game).

The apps that tend to survive are those that truly hit the mark on delivering a solution for a critical need. And the individuals who are creating this new class of application are the developers driving our industry. What we’ll see from these mavericks going forward will be more and more applications integrating with each other and apps behaving less selfishly, as developers come to realize the richer opportunity that can undoubtedly occur when they make the correct partnerships and hook into other applications in order to deliver a complete solution.

Let’s continue this discussion at AppForum. The RhoMobile team looks forward to meeting you there.