IT SEEMS THAT THE WORLD IS OBSESSED WITH EVERYTHING MOBILE; FROM TABLETS TO SMARTPHONES AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN, THE BUSINESS WORLD HAS BECOME TRULY MOBILE. THE PROLIFERATION OF CLOUD PROVIDERS HAS MADE THE SHIFT TOWARDS THE CLOUD JUST THAT LITTLE BIT EASIER AND ITS POPULARITY CAN EVEN BE SEEN IN CONSUMER PRODUCTS SUCH AS THE ICLOUD ON THE APPLE IPHONE.
People want to be able to access everything, everywhere, which has brought about the onset of the mobile cloud which is viewed to reach a value of $9.5 billion by 2014.
“The mobile cloud, in its simplest form, involves running applications in a cloud environment. These applications can then be accessed by mobile devices such as a smartphone or tablet. Essentially, this means that a website is designed to work across varied mobile devices and web browsers hosted on an array of seemingly limitless servers,” explains Brett Raven, Principal Business Solutions Consultant at Solentive Software.
“Most, if not all of the data used for the application is stored on the servers; so very little space is required on the mobile device. This is in contrast to developing an ‘app’ that runs natively on a device, stores data locally and only accesses the web servers where necessary,” continues Brett.
In summary, the benefits of using a mobile cloud infrastructure and applications are:
Limitless storage, memory and backend processing power
Centralised security
Centralised backup and disaster recovery
Simple deployment (no need to install on mobile device)
Better control (run one version of the software, fix the bugs once)
Pay for the scale you require, on demand
No need to develop separate applications for different mobile devices
Shorter development and testing cycles
However, as with anything, there are downsides. The pitfalls of mobile cloud are:
A steady and quick internet connection is needed
Refresh lag times
Mobile cloud computing is believed to be the leading mobile application development and deployment strategy by 2014. Mobile cloud has the potential to change the way employees perform their work by providing the ability to access organisational applications through their mobile devices anywhere, anytime.
The mobile cloud is already here and it’s here to stay.