the state of mobile apps 2012: a survey of enterprise plans

Mobile�Strategies�State�of�Mobile�Apps�2012�Survey�Highlights�

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Pragmatic�Adoption�of�Open�Standards�� June 11, 2012

P a g e ��1 Disclaimer: Information is furnished on an as is basis. No warranty, written or implied as to the accuracy of the data. Not responsible for typographical or repro-

duction errors. Not an offering to buy or sell securities of any kind. Does not represent investment advice in any form.

© 2012 MGI RESEARCH, LLC www.mgiresearch.com +1 888 801 3644

Summary: As mobile devices proliferate and the drumbeat for mobile apps grows louder, executives responsible for mobile apps strategy today are challenged to determine the pace and trajectory of apps development. MGI Research recently concluded a survey of over 200 organizations from around the world to determine the State of Mobile Apps in 2012. The results of this in-depth study provide insights into mobile apps strategies, best practices, technical and spending priorities, and the current and expected adoption rate of mobile standards like HTML5 and JavaScript. This Executive Report contains MGI’s quick-take analysis of the survey data compiled on June 5, 2012.

By surveying over 200 organizations ranging in size of less than 2,500 employees up to companies with over 100,000 employees and analyzing budget priorities, technical preferences, and the number of applications in planning, development, and production, a clearer picture of the state of mobile apps emerges. Looking at a single issue in isolation, like user adoption of HTML5, does not tell the entire story, and in fact can lead to expensive, time-consuming mistakes. The data indi-cate that while adoption of mobile standards is rising fast, companies are moving with equal speed to fill in the gaps of standards and are taking a very pragmatic approach to mobile apps strategies. It is critical for strategy and dev teams to discount the hype, and take a realistic, comprehensive view of where mobile apps are today and set a direction cognizant of the inevitable, fast changes occurring in this market. This report contains MGI Research’s quick-take analysis on data compiled as of June 5, 2012, and spotlights how much and where companies are allocating resources, the technological choices being made, and looks inside the mobile apps life-cycle, which contains some surprising insights. Budget Priorities As Figure 1 indicates, almost 48% of users surveyed indicate that investment in multi-platform tools will increase in the next 12 months – making it the number one budget priority. Figure 1 - Mobile Apps Technical Budget Priorities

Key Issues � How are user strategies for

mobile apps evolving? � What areas of mobile apps are

gaining? � What are practical user strate-

gies for open standards in mo-bile apps?

� How important are security, privacy, and mobile device management to users’ mobile strategies?

� What are best practices for developing and maintaining mobile apps?

� How will mobile apps budgets and resource investments evolve?

Survey Demographics

x 221 Total number of par-ticipants

x 59% Described them-selves as “decision mak-ers”

x 63% Represented North American compa-nies/locations

x 16% Represented EMEA (Europe, Mideast & Afri-ca)

x 21% Represented Asia/Pacific companies

�State�of�Mobile�Apps�2012�–�Survey�Highlights

June 11, 2012




Mobile security and privacy are a close number two priority, and when combin-ing the responses of Investment Increasing and Investment About the Same, near-ly 100% of users expect to allocate the same or larger amounts of their budget on mobile security and privacy. Integration with legacy systems ranked third in the category of increased investment. Interestingly, the top five priorities as a whole are areas where standards are relatively weak, particularly mobile security, priva-cy, and integration. And the top priority – investment in multi-platform apps dev tools, is an area that, at least theoretically, should be less relevant because of standards. Spending indicators alone, however, don’t tell the whole story. Technical Priorities Among organizations that perceive themselves to be Mobile Experts and Innova-

tors, the majority view using standards like HTML5 and JavaScript as critical to their success. The vast majority of all organizations – approximately 85%, view greater use of standards as Important, Very Important, or Most Important/Critical to their mo-bile strategy. At the same time, the single most important technical priority is improving mobile app performance – over 70% of respondents rated better per-formance as Very Important or Most Important/Critical. The use of native device functionality ranks highly – just over 60% of dev teams today view it as Very or Most Important/Critical. A surprise in the data is the relatively low emphasis on managing BYOD – Bring Your Own Device. In spite of all the hype among press and analysts, BYOD is not a priority at least when it comes to mobile apps

Figure 2 - Mobile Apps Technical Priorities

About MGI Research MGI Research is an independent industry research and advisory firm focused on disruptive trends in the technology industry. Through subscription research, advi-sory engagements, industry studies and benchmarks, MGI Research helps clients identify opportunities for re-ducing IT costs and minimize tech-nology risks. MGI Research analysts work closely with user organizations to model ROI and TCO tradeoffs, benchmark operational metrics and to create practical strategies for new initiatives such as mobile, virtualiza-tion, SaaS and cloud computing. MGI Quant models and indices use quanti-tative methods to help technology investors and industry executives make more informed and timely go/no-go investment decisions, opti-mize valuations and generate new ideas. MGI analysts have at least twenty five years of experience. MGI Re-search founders and senior team members have backgrounds from companies such as Gartner, Soundview and Morgan Stanley. For additional information, reprints or to schedule a confidential consulta-tion, call +1 888 801-3644 or visit www.mgiresearch.com

State�of�Mobile�Apps�2012�–�Survey�Highlights June 11, 2012�




dev strategies and plans. When taking the budget priorities into consideration with the technical directions, it appears that standards are viewed as an important general direction and users like the basic tenements of standards. At the same time, few companies today are betting their mobile apps success uniquely on a standards-only approach. Use of multi-platform tools and the prioritization of things like improved performance, security and privacy, and use of native device functionality all underscore the pragmatic reality of mobile apps dev projects to-day. Mobile Apps Life-Cycle Issues The mobile apps life-cycle question contains some surprising insights. Develop-ing mobile apps is fast, especially when compared to traditional software devel-opment. Figure 3 - Mobile Apps Life-Cycle Experience

Most companies typically spend 6 months or less developing mobile apps, and they view the development costs as attractively low. However, apps have longer active lives than one might suspect. Most companies maintain their mobile apps almost continuously, and they support apps for a year or longer. Far from being disposable, companies report continuously maintaining mobile apps as a vehicle for delivering innovation and improved service levels. Somewhat surprisingly, the larger the company, the more likely it is to have relatively faster update cy-cles. As companies grow in size, what we see is they seem to rely on mobile apps as an important tool for gaining competitive advantage.


June 11, 2012




ROI Expectations From an ROI point of view, 27.7% of respondents indicated an Above Average (4.7% Outstanding and 23% Excellent) Return on Investment from their mobile app projects. That is above the 21.5% of respondents that indicated a Below Av-erage or a Disappointing ROI from their mobile app investments. Roughly half (50.8%) of companies surveyed indicate an average ROI from their mobile apps.

Figure 4 - Mobile Apps ROI Experience





Business Focus Mobile apps are viewed as key tools to differentiate the business. Increasing cus-tomer engagement, reinforcing brand values, and providing better customer ser-vice are key business drivers. The benefit of mobile apps is seen as a driver of competitive advantage – but we’re not yet seeing mobile apps being used for lower costs or increasing margins, although at MGI Research we believe that day will come.

Figure 5 - Mobile Apps Business Drivers


June 11, 2012




Application Type Focus Customer service-oriented apps are by far the most popular apps in development,

with companies of all sizes making it the number one type of app in development, especially among the largest companies. Marketing apps are the second most popular overall, again with larger companies planning more than their smaller peers. Manufacturing, supply chain, operations, and even HR-oriented apps have yet to take off. The concentration of develop-ment efforts around customer service, marketing, and sales underscore the size of the mobile apps opportunity both within (e.g., B2E) and beyond (B2B and B2C) the four walls of the enterprise.

Figure 6 - Mobile Apps Focus





Early Days for Mobile Apps While the hype and expectations around mobile apps are reaching fever pitch, the reality is that we’re very early in the evolution of mobile apps. Sixty-five percent of users report having five mobile apps or fewer in the planning stage of devel-opment. About seventy percent indicate they have five or fewer mobile apps in development, and nearly half of all respondents indicated that they have no B2E (business to employee) apps in production. Funding for mobile projects is coming from across the enterprise, and in fact 10%

of organizations report that 10% of mobile apps projects are funded directly from the executive suite. Although IT is increasingly the department responsible for deploying and main-taining mobile apps, today is it largely the business itself that is funding projects. We believe the growth in mobile business apps, whether it is B2C, B2B, or B2E, is just beginning. From a technical point of view, users like the concept of stand-ards and are quickly absorbing them. And yet, the immaturity of standards and relative inexperience of companies building mobile apps combined with real-world business pressure to quickly deliver apps and ensure adequate security, privacy, and performance is driving mobile apps development teams to be very

Figure 7 - Mobile Apps Financial Sponsors


June 11, 2012




pragmatic in their approach. Considering user adoption rates (high) of mobile apps, and the perceived time to market and cost advantages of mobile vs. tradi-tional software applications, mobile apps development is likely to become a focal point for delivering innovation and competitive differentiation. As organizations take the time to analyze the possibilities for innovation and competitive ad-vantage delivered via mobile apps, we expect to see number of mobile apps to rise dramatically.

the state of mobile apps 2012: a survey of enterprise plans

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