There is no doubt that consumers benefit from today’s unprecedented rapid technological innovation in mobile and web. But, there are costs that business incur as a result.
Here’s an overview of some of the costs that you should take into account when building budgets as well as mobile and web strategies. Some have argued that the trend of B.Y.O.D., or Bring Your Own Device, has mitigated some costs to corporations and organizations. That may be true, but after reading this you will probably agree that the costs listed below reach beyond the cost of the actual device. These are all things you have to take into account to stay competitive in today’s hard charging environment.
Hardware turnover. The advantage here goes to iOS devices. Android devices can become obsolete within six months because cell providers are allowed to provide phones and tablets with customized versions of the Android OS. They essentially lock you into a forced hardware upgrade because you’ll only get one or two minor OS upgrades per device. Your company will have to balance that software it can run on various device operating system versions. Whereas iOS devices, on the other hand, get access to the latest updates. Also, like the traditional PC upgrade path, with mobile devices you may have to upgrade to gain access to greater memory or CPU capabilities.
Code updates. You’ll spend a significant amount of time keeping up with the latest capabilities. It takes time to learn how best to adapt to the latest coding patterns, UI design patterns, and technological advancements.
Reverse compatibility. Some business have a requirement to maintain their code on older versions of browsers and operating systems. The further back you have to support OS versions the larger the support costs. The larger the gap between the latest versions of SDKs, APIs, devices and browsers and legacy versions the greater the cost.
Security. It can be very challenging to secure smartphones and tablets from physical intrusions and viruses. These breaches can give criminals access to your internal systems. Tracking down security leaks and fixing breaches can be very expensive and time consuming.
Replacement devices. You’ll need to decide whether or not to carry insurance on each device, or take the chance that a device will never get dropped, broken or stolen. Replacement costs are extremely expensive if you have no warranty and no option from the cellular carrier to get a subsidized upgrade.
Poor connectivity. This may seem like an odd cost to list, but poor connectivity can cripple the productivity of a remote workforce. The more reliant an organization becomes on internet connections, especially for real-time systems, the greater the cost that can be incurred when users encounter connectivity problems. Poor connectivity means slow, intermittent or a non-existent internet connection.
Cellular data costs. Another byproduct of being increasingly mobile is dealing with how your architecture handles data transactions between clients and servers. Chatty applications, or applications that move a lot of data back and forth, and heavy web pages, or web pages that are physically large when loaded into a browser, can result in significant internet and cellular data charges. For example, if your application is 3 MBs and it is accessed 1000 times per day by your workforce, that adds up to 3 GBs of data usage per day.