Mobile Application Development

According to a recent research, Windows Mobile platform appeared as the most predictable mobile application development platform, meaning the difference between real and planned development term. Moreover, was found that mobile applications implemented on Microsoft platform are generally characterized by a shorter development time in comparison to Linux, PalmOS or Symbian platforms.

One also mentioned that overall development time and development time predictability are the two of the most crucial points for developers engaged in the highly cost- and time-sensitive sphere of mobile application development.

While evaluating mobile operating systems, much attention is paid to upfront license cost, however, another pertinent criterion is the total cost of the development project. We can enumerate several factors driving longer development terms for operating systems other than Microsoft:

• Development and porting of hardware drivers;
• Software quality assurance, testing and verification;
• Customization OS interface.

While Microsoft keeps on facing a heavy battle in the global mobile device market, recent changes – made to address wireless support, management of device and its security along with its simple licensing model – position the OS more favorably with device OEMs/ODMs, product developers and finally end users.

Additional results of the research:

• New estimations from industry leading experts of the global market for commercial mobile software – which encompasses operating systems, application frameworks, java service and provisioning solutions – it exceeded $560 million in 2004 and is expected to reach $1.6 billion by 2008. Moreover, client/server-based enterprise mobile software, which includes security, device management and middleware, is anticipated to increase from from $582 million to $1.45 billion.
• One predicts no single domination of a specific operating system. While Microsoft, Symbian and PalmSource are trying to conquer the market share for higher-end smartphones and PDAs. The black horse will be Linux, which is expected to account for a growing share of the mobile market.

About the market research report

This research covers the global market for the mobile software stack. In particular, the research efforts are generally focused on the market for three types of mobile software stack elements:

• Operating Systems – this involves commercial application operating systems and real-time operating systems.
• Application Frameworks – Java services, browser-based frameworks and other application framework platforms.
• Mobile Middleware/Utilities – involves security, management of device, provisioning and other mobile utilities.

In general, mobile devices are defined as small form factor handhelds (voice-centric phones, feature phones and smartphones), PDAs and application-specific mobile computers.