MBaaS – Mobile Backend as a Service – is becoming more and more cited around Enterprise Mobility. Tony Rizzo, authoring on the web community Enterprise Mobility Exchange, today called it the “new application platform game in town”.
We are talking about mobile application development platforms no longer provided in the client-server-model, but – along with so many other architectures in the enterprise world – from the cloud, as a service. While the “old” mobile application development platforms have helped evolve enterprise mobility to what it is today, the new generation provides more flexibility in creating apps and connecting backend systems, literally enabling organizations to create mobile applications “on demand”.
An interesting list of how enterprises set up their mobile apps successfully is cited by the author:
- First, Line of Business, IT and finance should be able to get together quickly and define new apps as the business requirements occur.
- Next, other important stakeholders from the organization need to be integrated easily in planning and developing apps.
- Also, IT needs to be able to bring together user interface capabilities and the connectivity with various backend systems fast and flexibly.
- Mobile app development should furthermore be agile and collaborative. The author therefore recommends embracing existing development frameworks that mobile developers are familiar with already.
- The core of what MBaaS is to do for organizations is that all the underlying complexity is being handled by the platform, while organizations can focus on the apps fulfilling their business needs.
- Finally, it should be possible and affordable to also create “one-off” apps, quickly needed for a one-time business purpose, implemented fast, and at costs that justify the fact that the apps are “disposable”.
We agree with the author that all these points have become crucial to realize competitive advantages with mobile business apps for enterprises. One point, however, we would like to question – based on what we provide with engomo, we know it can be even easier: With easy-to-handle WYSIWYG configuration modules, you can simply cross-out the use of mobile developers and frameworks. engomo has demonstrated successfully, that also this level of complexity can be handled by the MBaaS, making flexible and agile enterprise mobility a concept not only applicable to enterprises with dedicated mobile development resources, but to companies of all sizes, requiring not more than an IT administrator and the toolkit to make your own app without programming.