Challenges in developing software for wireless mobile devices

e-Commerce

Electronic Commerce

The intent of this analysis is to define two reasons why developing software for wireless devices is challenging and also to define the five components of mobile operating systems. Unifying both of these subject areas is the rapid adoption of mobile devices, ranging from smartphones to tablet PCs including the best-selling Apple iPad (Kolios, Friderikos, Papadaki, 2012). With more developers than ever before looking to create new applications on wireless devices, the analysis of the two reasons slowing down their pace of progress is worth considering from a long-term market development standpoint as well.

Factors Making Software Development For Wireless Devices Challenging

Of the many factors that slow down new application development for wireless devices, the two most prevalent are the broad number of competing standards for application development, and the very precise nature of device requirements for each class or category of wireless device. Beginning with standards, developers realistically have to pick just one and stick with it for their entire development efforts if they are going to attain significant sales. For the majority of developers, there aren't enough programmers available to manage parallel or multi-platform development strategies; many must pick one and excel at the depth of support each platform provides. The extent of sophistication within each area of wireless development standards is escalating, with greater emphasis on security, scalability and HTML5 support across a very broad range of devices for example (Kolios, Friderikos, Papadaki, 2012). This first factor of the number of competing standards for application development on various devices is also influenced by the variation in user interface standards across platforms and operating systems as well (Frank, 2006). This leads into the second factor that making developing software for wireless devices challenging.

The actual devices themselves have limitations, specific programming constraints and requirements, and highly unique screens and visibility constraints as well. All of these factors contribute to a significant challenge in creating and launching software for these devices. What exacerbates this problem is the pace of innovation significantly varying across all of these devices concurrent to each other (Frank, 2006).

Five Components Of A Mobile Operating System