Managing Mobile Platform Proliferation and Smartphone Market Fragmentation

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

Introduction of the Chapter1

Background to the Research1

Aims of the Research Study5

Research Questions5

Justification for the Research Study5

Methodology of the Research Study7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW9

Introduction of the Chapter9

Recent Developments and Smartphones9

Mobile Platforms12

Strategy for Fragmented Market15

Challenges of Supporting Multiple Platforms17

Application Security Comparison of Diverse Mobile Platforms17

Summary of the Chapter18

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Introduction of the Chapter

This chapter provides a brief introduction of the research. In addition to this, it provides the background of the research. This chapter further expands to give the aims and objectives of the research, research questions, furthermore it gives the justification of the research. Finally, it provides the methodology of the research, which gives the research design.

Background to the Research Smartphones, are revolutionizing the way people communicate, work and live. The smartphone market is one of the youngest in ICT sector, and its future looks bright and promising. Studies indicate that growth in demand for smartphones has outpaced the rest of the mobile phone market for several years. In the last few years, the market for smart devices has been flooded with new phones, new operating systems and new platforms.

For mobile software developers/companies, this proliferation creates both opportunities and challenges in creating and promoting applications to suit the mobile market. The mobile software market offers lots of opportunity for smartphone developers. However, this market is highly fragmented and increasingly complex. Developing mobile applications is known to be demanding and promoting them is even more challenging. Recently, there are several mobile software platforms and several devices to support. Ballard (2007) notes that “proliferation is a reality of mobile application design. A number of attempts have been made to create some platform, some technology that allows developers to write once and the application runs on every device, but none has succeeded.”

Software developers/companies simply cannot afford to create applications and distribute them across and support many platforms that already exist. In recent years we have witnessed an exponential growth in the adoption of unprecedented technological devices such as PDA's and smartphones. All of this has resulted in the proliferation of mobile devices that allow connection to the Internet at high speeds, and a computing capability that until recently was reserved only for desktops. These devices allow you to perform tasks for which they were not initially conceived. Along with that these devices also allow the users to access the information present over the internet in ubiquitous manner, virtually anywhere at any time.

Coupled with the evolution of hardware, increasingly more opportunities arise for developers of applications for these devices: tablet, Smartphone, PDA, etc. In order to develop these applications the developers entail to different concepts that are equivalent to the applications of desktop computers, which take into account the limitations of display, input devices and how to interact with the user, which are generally inherent in the use of mobile devices (Oliver, 2009, pp. 56). An increasing number of companies and institutions demand the development of applications with diverse functionality and can be installed ...