Recently IDC surveyed a group of 6,046 developers to gather insights about current trends in the mobile world. The survey represents the largest survey of mobile developers in the world, drawing from the community, which includes developers who work across major mobile platforms such as iOS, Android and Windows. Their findings paint an interesting picture for the future of mobile.

With three years of survey data now available, some interesting historical trends can be seen. Notable among them is the shift in the types of apps being built. In Q410, 70.7% of developers planned to build apps that would be primarily consumer-facing (B2C), whereas in Q213, the number fell to 57.2%. By contrast, in Q410 the percentage of developers who planned to build business (B2B) and employee (B2E) apps stood at 29.3%. As of Q213, that number has grown to 42.7%. This evolution – consumer opportunities first, followed by enterprise needs and adoption – mirrors that of the original web, but the rate of evolution is much faster.

Key Findings

Here’s a basic summary of the main points:

• There is increased demand within the enterprise for the development of B2B and B2E mobile apps, and respectively, decreased demand for the development of B2C apps.
• Most developers view the tablet and the smartphone as equally important form factors to develop for, with the exception of Android developers who generally have bias against the tablet.
• Developers have increasing interest to work on new and interesting form factors such as Google Glass, “Smart TVs” and connected cars.
• Despite the explosive market penetration of Android devices, developer interest has not grown for the platform.
• Q410 to Q213 has seen a 19% decline in developers who report expecting to build consumer-facing apps (B2C) for their enterprise clients. The growth is in business (B2B) and employee (B2E) apps, from 29.3% in Q410 to 42.7% in Q213.
• 63% of developers are reporting “increased” or “greatly increased” enterprise demand for their skills in the past six months.
• Over the next 6 months, nearly an equivalent percentage of developers expect to build for the tablet as for the smartphone: 81.34% vs. 84%, respectively.
• 61% of developers think that Mobile Backend-as-a-Service (MBaaS) will replace Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) within 24 months for mobile developers.
• 16% of developers expect to build applications for smart TVs within the next six months.

Want more juicy stats? Check out the survey.

How These Trends Affect Virtual Teams

The enterprise companies need to shift their interest to creating innovative B2B and B2E apps that help them improve their business processes and replace peripheral hardware.  Adding highly qualified individuals to your team (with minimal overheads) can remove a large financial burden from business. You can beef up expertise in-organically inside your organization and free up your time to focus on driving profit instead of managing and administering the human resources. Also, tedious repetitive tasks can exhaust time and energy. Why not delegate these tasks to someone better suited and enjoy the cost-efficiencies gained in lieu of hiring locally?

A virtual team of software/mobile developers works for your company, like an in-house employee, with one primary difference that it may be within our city or working from an office halfway around the globe. Companies have now started to embrace the concept that it is the most convenient option they can adopt.  Thanks to improved technology, you gain the benefits of global talent with the control and collaboration opportunities as you hardly ever feel the distance.

The key thing to remember is that a virtual employee, when managed through a service provider, is as real as a local employee and technology takes care of the rest. That makes Virtual Teams the best choice for enterprises need to develop software and systems in-house.

Way Forward

VizTeams has over 300 experts with the history of successfuly delivering over 500 projects. VizTeams serves cllient inside North America specifically USA and Canada while physically serving clients in the cities of Seattle, Toronto, Buffalo, Ottawa, Monreal, London, Kitchener, Windsor, Detroit. Feel free to contact us or Drop us a note for any help or assistance.

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