IDC MarketScape released an Assessment of the World Wide Enterprise Mobile Application Development Platform 2016 featuring Salesforce. The sections included in the excerpt are: IDC Opinion, IDC MarketScape Vendor Inclusion Criteria, Essential Guidance and Vendor Summary Profile.
IDC Opinion states that Mobile app development platforms are critical for businesses that are mobilizing their workforce, external marketing, customer interactions, operations, and business processes. The ability to create custom apps targeted for specific end users and use cases is a powerful capability and allows organizations to increase operational scale and efficiency while reducing costs. Mobile app development platforms are used for both business-to consumer (B2C) and business-to-employee (B2E) scenarios. From the B2E perspective, a critical function of the mobile app development platform is the creation of powerful, productivity-driving apps for a company’s own internal employees, customized to the business’ unique operations, workflows, and operating parameters.
This IDC MarketScape looks at enterprise-focused mobile app development platform vendors, with particular attention to each vendor’s alignment with enterprises’ business-to-employee mobile app development needs. The criteria for inclusion of vendors in this IDC MarketScape analysis are that they must offer a mobile application development platform that has a balanced focus on both front-end client-side and back end–as-a-service capabilities. Mobile front-end client-side runtime is one of the requirements in addition to mobile back end–as-a-service capabilities, they must be cross platform focused, they must have a customer base currently developing 40%+ of their applications to business users. And Vendors must have annual revenue of $10+ million from enterprise mobile app development platform offerings.
Also IDC estimated recognized software revenue totaling $10+ million for calendar year 2015. Other companies that play in this space that may qualify for future IDC MarketScape documents. These companies include Amazon, Any Presence, Appcelerator, Appery.io, Apple, Built.io, Catavolt, Google/Apigee, Mad Mobile, Kinvey, and Sencha.
Essential buyer guidance in the excerpt include as follows. Enterprise buyers should consider the following major areas to help them make a decision that best meets their B2E mobile app development needs: Platforms that target the line-of-business developer in addition to the technical developer, Platforms that have priority and unique focus on integration with key enterprise back-office software and processes, Platforms with a clear vision of their future evolution.
The vendor summary profile section in the excerpt briefly explains IDC’s key observations resulting in a vendor’s posit Salesforce is an IDC MarketScape Leader in mobile app development platform worldwide for enterprises looking to develop business-to-employee mobile apps. Salesforce App Cloud Mobile enables enterprises to use a variety of low-code or no-code tools to create mobile apps that are tied to its CRM software as well as to a variety of their back-end services through API.
Salesforce offers an enterprise-grade mobile app development platform to enterprises. The platform is oriented toward line-of-business and nontechnical developers on the front-end client side. It prioritizes speed to market when it comes to designing the mobile app user experience
Salesforce’s installed base of CRM software clients is testament to the value of the company’s approach to solving enterprise-grade software and scalability needs. Salesforce has invested significantly in its mobile app development platform approach to building mobile apps in a short time to market.
Salesforce has a fairly agnostic approach to integrations with MDM/MAM software, app development life-cycle tools, and other back-office software including ERP and business process management software.
