The Business Case for Writing Good Mobile Applications

The Business Case for Writing Good Mobile Applications San Francisco 2005 Michelle McKelvey Mobile ISV Architect February 8th Agenda • • • • What is the Mobile PC Market? What Features Do Mobile PC Users want? The Mobile PC Development Roadmap Windows Codenamed ―Longhorn‖ – The Future of Mobile PC Development Mobile Platform Choices Pocket PC Phone Smartphone • Integrated phone with PDA • Primarily data viewing • Interoperability with Outlook & Exchange • .NET Compact Framework • ASP.NET mobile controls • View and some data entry • Integrated PDA with phone Portability Smart Personal Objects • One-way network • Information consumption • Interoperability with Office, Exchange and SQL Server • .NET Compact Framework • ASP.NET mobile controls Mobile/Tablet PC • Complex document authoring, editing and active reading • Note taking and ink annotating (-) • Keyboard centric at the desk, pen & keyboard away from the desk • Keyboard, mouse plus pen, ink, and speech input methods • Full .NET framework preinstalled • Pen, ink, handwriting and speech recognition API’s (+) Windows Mobile (-) Functionality (+) Tablet PC And Mobile Platforms Roadmap 2003 Redefine the Mobile PC Experience Tablet the premium Ultra Portable PC Tablet as a Vertical Success 2004/5 Mainstream the Mobile Windows PC Tablet technology as a feature Microsoft focused on Mobile PC 2006 A Mobile PC for Everyone Mobile gets personal PC form-factors for everyone The Market Goes Mobile ―Notebook PCs, with a compound average growth rate of 15% worldwide through 2008, will outsell desktop PCs as business and consumer users upgrade or complement their desktop PCs.‖ Strategy Analytics 8-03 Growing Mobile Workforce • IDC estimates that between 2002 and 2006 the number of U.S. mobile workers will grow by almost 13 million, from 91.8 million to 104.5 million individuals. • This growing mobile workforce will embrace a variety of hardware, software, and services technologies to enable them to work more efficiently in a wide variety of locations. U.S. PC Unit Shipments – Total PCs 40,000 35,000 30,000 25,000 20,000 15,000 10,000 5,000 0 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Portables Desktops • Source: IDC, 2004 U.S. PC Unit Shipments - Growth 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 -5 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Portables Desktops • Source: IDC, 2004 Mobile Solutions • Market opportunity to meet the needs of mobile workers. – Provide advanced technology – Optimize wireless solutions – Increase productivity and efficiency • Wireless and mobile technology has expanded the appeal of cell phones, PDAs, and other mobile devices. – Users expect similar experience from all platforms Mobile Worker Segmentation • Source: IDC, 2002 Mobile Worker Segmentation • Office-Based Mobile Workers – 56% of the total U.S. mobile population. – Includes heavy regular travelers. • Most enthusiastic of technologies designed to enable them to stay connected and increase their productivity – And those who travel occasionally, bring work home, mobile at work. – As technology improves mobile so does worker productivity creating more and more mobile workers. Mobile Worker Segmentation • Non-Office-Based Mobile Workers – Mobile field workers—travel from job site to job site • IDC estimates that the mobile field worker population will grow from 11.6 million individuals in 2002 to 13.3 million by 2006. • Key opportunity for a variety of ruggedized, vertical-specific and horizontally-focused mobile devices • Data capturing, tracking, and location-based tasks – Mobile on-location workers—move around specific job site • IDC estimates that there are 18.7 million mobile on-location workers in the United States. • Food Service, Hospitality. • Not first wave of adopters of mobile technology. Mobile Worker Segmentation • Home-Based Mobile Workers – IDC estimates that there are currently 10.5 million home-based mobile workers and that this number will grow to 11.8 million by 2006. – Those who work at home for an outside employer, telecommuters, and those who work for a home business - mobile home-based business workers. – Needs comparable to those of office-based workers, but need home connectivity Mobile Consumer • Consumer Market – – – – – – – – Prefer form factor of Mobile PC’s Have wireless broadband at home User at desk or coffee table Need offline data solutions Read e-mail Browse Web Play games Appreciation of long battery life and network awareness Understand Your Market • Analyze the entire mobile population as a whole. – Integrating solutions with existing systems, software, hardware, and whatever else. – Interoperability across multiple types of wireless networks. – Allow mobile workers to move across corporate campuses into the wide area, back to the home, and then out into public areas—all locations in which access is required and in which different modes of access can improve efficiencies. • Security has become increasingly central to corporate thinking about support for mobile workers. – Fundamental part of data communications. Windows Client Vision • Make Windows computers more valuable to more people more hours of the day by enabling them to use computers in new physical and social settings. When to Consider Mobile PC Features • In the design stage of your projects. • Allocate time and resources for design, development and test of Mobile features. • Don’t assume desktop power, connectivity and display when creating your application. • Similar to accessibility—the sooner you plan for the features, the better integrated they will be. What Features to Consider • Four Pillars of Mobility – – – – Data Management Power Awareness Network Awareness Display Data Management • Don’t assume access to data. • Utilize WebServices for middle tier. • Consider disconnected scenarios. – Utilize local storage. – Two way sync when connected. – File and Database handles can be lost at any time. Your application should recover gracefully. • Handle online/offline sync gracefully. • Markus Eggers talk today and tomorrow. Power Awareness • Application should not assume AC power. • Consider batter life when doing large transfers of data, polling status, writing files to disk, heavy display, and computations. • Have a low power option for you application. – Download only headers – User initiated ―Display Mode‖ – Check power level before long operations • Handle suspend and resume gracefully. • Dale Taylor’s talk later today. Network Awareness • Applications should not assume connectivity. • Consider bandwidth of connectivity when doing large transfers of data, background transfers, and database updates. • Have a low connectivity option for your application. – Download only headers – Postpone data sync • Handle connected/disconnected events gracefully. • Dr. Neil’s talk later today. Display • Applications should not assume previous display configurations. • Monitors may come and go from users configurations. • Need to support both landscape and portrait display. • Sri’s talk later today. What’s Coming in “Longhorn” • Data Management – Improved Sync Manager UI and control – SQL Lite • Power Awareness – Better APIs – More fine-grained information and control • Network Awareness – Better APIs – Notification Model replaces polling • Display – Better support of multi-mon – Auxiliary Display Questions?