CIO

CIOs struggle to deliver timely mobile business apps: survey

Survey identifies the problems to be working with inefficient teams, mainframes

CIOs are not delivering on mobile business apps as fast as they could be, according to a global survey conducted by IT market research firm Vanson Bourne.

The survey, commissioned by Borland, consists of 590 CIOs, 50 whom were Australia or New Zealand based. The survey found that a third of the CIOs described their teams as being “sluggish, middling or outpaced” when it comes to developing new versions of mobile apps and updating existing apps in a timely manner.

Most CIOs said it takes an average of five months for them to update their mobile apps to new versions of operating systems, being outpaced by large vendors that update their apps every two months.

“Only one in 10 respondents say that their mobile development team is perfect,” said the research firm.

“This poses a particular challenge given respondents predict a 50 per cent increase in the number of business apps that need to be made accessible on mobile devices over the next three years [from 31 per cent in 2013 to 46 per cent in 2016].”

Mainframes also present challenges in mobile app development, according to the survey. Seventy-eight per cent of participants said having a mainframe makes developing or implementing mobile apps that work with existing systems difficult.

This has resulted in 86 per cent who found mobile app vendors have been reluctant to work with them because they have a mainframe, leaving the bulk of development done in-house.

Android is the popular choice of operating system

The survey found 88 per cent of CIOs in A/NZ are developing mobile apps for the Android operating system, followed by iOS at 84 per cent and Windows Phone at 52 per cent.

Only 28 per cent of A/NZ respondents were developing for BlackBerry OS. This figure is estimated to only grow by 6 per cent over the next two years.

Android is expected to fall to 80 per cent in two years’ time, with iOS to grow to 82 per cent and Windows Phone 62 per cent in A/NZ.

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