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Gartner Says by 2016, More Than 50 Per Cent of Mobile Apps Deployed Will be Hybrid

.2013 – With organisations under extreme pressure from management and employees to develop and deploy mobile applications to accommodate mobile work styles and increase customer engagement, Gartner, Inc. predicts that more than 50 per cent of mobile apps deployed by 2016 will be hybrid.
“Mobility has always been a separate topic for IT professionals, but it is now influencing mainstream strategies and tactics in the wider areas of technology enablement and enterprise architectures,” said Ken Dulaney, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “Increasingly, organisations are finding that they need to support multiple platforms, especially as the [bring your own device] BYOD trend gains momentum.”
To address the need for mobile applications, organisations are looking to leverage applications across multiple platforms. The advantages of the hybrid architecture, which combines the portability of HTML5 web apps with a native container that facilitates access to native device features, will appeal to many organisations.
The need for context awareness in mobile applications has increased with the capabilities of mobile devices, causing developers to consider both hybrid and native architectures. For applications to leverage location information, notification systems, mapping capabilities and even on-device hardware such as the camera, the applications need to be developed using either hybrid or native architectures. This has caused organisation developers to consider alternatives to Web application development.
“Our advice would be to assume the organisation will have to manage a large and diverse set of mobile applications that will span all major architectures,” said Van Baker, research vice president at Gartner. “Organisations should consider how applications can be enriched or improved by the addition of native device capabilities and evaluate development frameworks that offer the ability to develop native, hybrid and web applications using the same code base. Where possible, development activities should be consolidated via cross-platform frameworks.”
Gartner outlined two additional key predictions around mobility and the organisation:
By 2014, Apple will be as accepted by enterprise IT as Microsoft is today.
“Although Apple-s mobile iPhone and iPads are already as accepted by enterprise IT as is Microsoft, Apple-s Mac systems for laptops/notebooks and desktops remain not commonly accepted by IT,” said David Mitchell Smith, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “Going forward, Apple will continue to benefit from consumerisation and will continue to evolve Macs to take on more iOS characteristics, which will contribute to acceptance of Macs in the organisation. As such, enterprise acceptance of Apple will continue to be driven by consumer demand.”
Microsoft-s mobile offerings – Windows Phone and Windows 8 – are new, but will continue to achieve some acceptance from organisations, largely due to the relationship that Microsoft has built with them and the management capabilities they provide. However, unlike Apple, Microsoft-s offerings have not benefited from consumerisation, which is driven first by consumer demand, and then by the demand of those consumers to bring that technology into the workplace. As a result of this shifting landscape, Gartner said that organisations should plan for continued consumerisation and for the fact that Apple will continue to be a significant beneficiary.
By 2013, the first $50 smartphone will appear in emerging countries.
New entrants in the smartphone market, including Chinese brands and white-box handset makers, have served to drive down the cost curve. Differing use cases between consumers in the emerging market and those in developed countries have enabled the reduction or elimination of certain costly features while advances in chipset integration have enabled semiconductor companies to address the growing low-cost smartphone market.
“The combination of competitive pricing pressure, open-channel market growth and feature elimination/integration will very soon result in the $50 smartphone. Semiconductor vendors that serve the mobile handset market must have a product strategy to address the low-cost smartphone platform, with $50 as a target in 2013,” said Mark Hung, research director at Gartner. “Global, brand-name smartphone vendors must re-examine their product lineups to determine how their low-end offerings are differentiated from the competitive products offered by low-cost vendors. Otherwise, brand-name smartphone vendors may want to cede this market to the white-box vendors and focus on high-end devices.”
More detailed analysis is available in the report “Predicts 2013: Mobility Becomes a Broad-Based Ingredient for Change” The report is available on Gartner-s web site at http://www.gartner.com/resId=2242915.
More information on Gartner-s top predictions for 2013 will be presented in the webinar “Top Technology Predictions for 2013 and Beyond” taking place 27 February at 1:00pm and 4:00pm UK time.. To register for this complimentary webinar, please visit http://my.gartner.com/webinardetail/resId=2297221?srcId=1-2994690285.

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world-s leading information technology research and advisory company. Gartner delivers the technology-related insight necessary for its clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT leaders in corporations and government agencies, to business leaders in high-tech and telecom organisations and professional services firms, to technology investors, Gartner is a valuable partner in 12,400 distinct organizations. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner Executive Programmes, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, Gartner works with every client to research, analyze and interpret the business of IT within the context of their individual role. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, USA, and has 5,300 associates, including 1,390 research analysts and consultants, and clients in 85 countries. For more information, visit www.gartner.com.