Seven Steps For Development of Mobile Enterprise Applications

Mobile trends

Some of you might still remember the days when e-mail communication was in it's infancy. Suddenly the use of e-mails began to boom and many industry experts predicted the end of standard posts and letters ("snail mail"), saying: "Why would anybody need to use letters anymore? E-mails are better, faster and cheaper than the post."
A little bit later, mobile phones begun to seize their market share and again rumors about the end of the e-mails began to spread. "Why would you need to use your PC to contact somebody when you have a cell phone everywhere with you and you can call him or send a SMS instantly?"
In the recent past, we saw many new technologies flourish in an IT industry such as VOIP, Skype, Webex, social networks and many more. But what happened to the old methods of communication?

• Posts and standard letters still exist
• People sent over 100 trillion e-mails in 2010 reference
• The sales of smartphones grew by 96% during 2010 reference
• More and more people use Skype, social networking and other means of modern communication

Mobile phones are certainly not dead and they won't be in a near future. For instance, Gartner forecasts that mobile web access will surpass PCs by 2013 (reference). Companies are increasingly demanding mobile applications which can help all stakeholders to make their business decisions on-the go. Business people need to access the data and relevant information not only in their offices but also on their business trips or while they are out of their offices.

Mobile enterprise applications

Developing mobile business applications is not as easy as it might look like at the first glance. The standard controls and libraries for Windows Mobile, .NET Compact Framework, offers only a very basic set of tools that can help mobile developers to create their applications. Business applications often need to present data in lists, tables, charts, details or grids.

7 steps to create your own mobile enterprise app

MobileApp Studio was designed to rapidly simplify the development of mobile business applications from scratch. You can download the trial version here. And try to create your first Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7, Android or iOS application in a very easy way. In the following tutorial I will explain how to create a Windows Mobile application in 8 steps:

1. Create a new Smart Device project in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
   
   
   
   
2. Add new MobileApp Studio control to your project
   
   
   
   
3. In the Wizard, choose a graphics theme and other attributes
   
   
   
   
4. Design the UI in an advanced designer embedded in Visual Studio
   
   
   
   
5. Bind to your data source
   
   
   
   
6. Add further functionality in C# or Visual Basic
   
   
   
   
7. Run in Emulator
   
   
   

Well done! It is as simple as you can see. The application looks great and already has basic functionality.

You can check out the more detailed video of how you can create mobile application under 4 minutes here.

MobileApp Studio features

MobileApp Studio consists of:

• Controls, components and libraries for all supported platforms
  • Windows Mobile (40 controls)
  • Windows Phone (20 controls)
  • Android (5 controls)
  • iOS (4 controls)
• Wizards and designers for lists and details

Multiplatform support

Development of applications for other operating systems is as easy as for Windows Mobile shown in the example above. However, the main advantage of MobileApp Studio is its multiplatform support and development. Once your Windows Mobile or Windows Phone application is ready, you will be able to reuse your code and simply export the code and rebuild it in:

• Visual Studio 2008 for Windows Mobile
• Visual Studio 2010 for Windows Phone
• Mono for Android for Android
• MonoTouch for iOS (iPhone, iPad). You will need Mac computer.

It is as simple and easy as that! You don't have to learn Java or objective C to develop applications Android and iOS. With MobileApp Studio you can make use of your existing knowledge and experience with .NET.
MobileApp Studio homepage: http://www.resco.net/developer/mobileappstudio/overview.aspx