Survey: Wireless App Development on the Rise

According to a recent Evans Data survey, although the recession may be impacting some elements of the IT industry, it is not having much, if any, impact on the market for developing applications for wireless devices.

The results of the survey show that 94 percent of corporate developers expect the development of wireless enterprise applications to either increase or stay the same in the coming year, with the strongest expectations for growth in the Asia-Pacific region.  Indeed, 47.6 percent of the developers surveyed said they expect the level of development to increase and 46.4 percent said they expect it to stay the same—only 6 percent of developers said they expect development efforts to decrease. 

In addition, among commercial developers, two-thirds expect the average revenue per user to increase in 2009, according to the recently released Wireless Development Survey, an in-depth survey of more than 400 wireless developers worldwide.

“These results continue to support significant opportunity within the mobile application development segment for both the corporate enterprise and commercially focused developer,” stated John Andrews, president and CEO of Evans Data. “Furthermore, mobile developers are beginning to understand that mobile development is now a commercially driven endeavor rather than just technological capability and performance, with more than half emphasizing market understanding and marketing skills as key elements to their success.”

 Moreover, when selecting a wireless platform to target, money was the most important consideration by far, with revenue potential cited by a quarter of the developers and 21 percent identifying bigger marketing opportunities.  By contrast, only 15 percent said platform openness was the most important consideration—an ironic consideration in the current fractured world of siloed wireless development platforms.

The survey also showed that 40 percent more developers plan to target Windows Mobile than Apple iPhone, and 46 percent more plan to target the NET Compact Framework than Google's Android platform. In addition, SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)/X M L Remote Procedure Call are currently being used by twice as many wireless developers as REST (Representational State Transfer).

Developers surveyed also said 40 percent of wireless development projects take three to six months to complete, with 60 percent completed in less than six months.