Thursday, May 19, 2011

Picking the Right Mobile Business App Developer

Right now, there are 350,000 applications available on the Apple App Store.  The Android Market Place has around 250,000 apps available.  There are tons of mobile apps out there.  Some are pretty good and some are pretty much junk.  Making a solid mobile app takes experience and good understanding of the hardware. Even well known software companies like Skype are learning to make mobile apps that work as advertised and don't have nasty side-effects like dead batteries by 3pm in the afternoon.

So how do you select the right company to develop a mobile app for your business?  If it's for business, the app must first meet the needs of the users, know how to manage the capabilities of the hardware and be steadfast in handling and delivering data.  As you shop for a partner to build your mobile solution, consider these 5 factors into your decision making process:
  1. Can the mobile solution work with hundreds of users, tapping into the same database at the same time?
  2. Can the mobile solution integrate with third-party accounting software, CRM's and other systems?
  3. Does the mobile solution include a robust synchronization engine that contains built-in tools that make sure databases don't become corrupt, database conflicts get resolved and data doesn't get lost somewhere in the "cloud"?
  4. Does the mobile solution rely on having an Internet connection?  Can the app continue to collect data with a weak or absent connection?
  5. Can the mobile application fully control internal hardware (like a barcode scanner) to maximize battery life, while providing functionality when it's needed?
MobileDataForce does not focus on making games, calorie counters and apps of that nature.  We build mobile solutions and data synchronization tools for business use.  If you need to perform inspections, assign/complete work orders, track company assets, enter a sales order or integrate mobility with your existing system, the guy who just wrote a cool checkbook app is probably NOT the right choice.

Whether your business needs a custom mobile solution, or you want to bring a robust sync engine into an app you've already developed, we can help.  For 10+ years we've focused on mobile development, starting way back with the original Palm devices!   And since 2005, our PointSync product has been the backend sync engine for thousands of mobile users.

Want to know more?  Contact us by phone (208-384-1200), email (sales@mobiledataforce.com) or on our websites:  www.mobiledataforce.com or www.pointsync.com.

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