It seems that everywhere you turn everything in life is going mobile. Music, movies, news, and sports are all now available through a Wi-Fi or cellular connection, the world is at your fingertips for the touching. Just last weekend I had to take my daughter to the emergency room for some tests, and while we waited I was able to entertain her by pulling up Netflix and streaming Dora the Explorer on my iPad thanks to the hospital’s free Wi-Fi. A few years ago I’d have been desperate to try and keep my two year old entertained while we waited in a small hospital room, but it was a pleasant experience because I could focus on spending time with her, albeit in a hospital, rather than trying to entertain her and getting all stressed out because she’s screaming that she wants to go home.
It was only a matter of time before this move towards mobility reached the enterprise. I can walk in to any given meeting at work and the majority of the attendees from the business side of the company are sitting at the table with their iPads. My company has adopted mobile, realizing that it isn’t going away, and even more interesting is that they have chosen to be agnostic in regards to platform, which can make security and common application availability a challenge.
The Key Question: Device Specific or Universal Mobile Apps?
Business Intelligence vendors are beginning to invest heavily in their mobile footprint and it seems that many are heading in the direction of having dedicated applications for each operating system. Today, the majority of tablet users are iPad, but as Android, WebOS, Blackberry enter and expand their presence in the market I question if this trend will continue, especially given tremendous growth that Android devices have shown lately. There are two issues that I see with the “dedicated application” approach to mobile BI. The first is the high cost associated with developing and maintaining what could potentially be five operating systems, not to mention the different versions and capabilities of each. My second, and much greater concern, is the user experience in general as they consume the information being provided. While the operating systems on the surface are similar in the user interface, the underlying systems could potentially be vastly different to the point where features that work beautifully in one OS could may not work in another, or may work, but not as cleanly as they do in other operating systems.
The Universal Mobile Approach
I recently had a discussion with someone from Microsoft and I asked them when they would be bringing something mobile to market, hoping that something would be coming out with the Denali release of SQL Server. He said that there was currently a passionate discussion happening internally as to how they wanted to approach mobile BI, with the option being the “dedicated application” approach or developing an agnostic delivery approach using HTML 5. To me, it only makes sense that the agnostic approach would be the way to go from a cost savings perspective, but it hinges on the continued standardization and acceptance of HTML 5 as a common standard, and each OS, or 3rd party vendors, would have to develop a browser that met those standards. With that said, you can deliver a better overall user experience with a device specific application, but if they develop for a device that becomes obsolete, they will have wasted a lot of resources. Building device specific apps on the wrong platform may turn out to be like buying a library of Betamax videos back in the 80s – not too useful as the world standardizes on VHS.
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Companies like LogiXML have moved quickly and chosen to go with the universal browser based approach, and other BI software companies like Microstrategy have built robust device-specific mobile applications to deliver BI content. As the evolution of mobile BI continues it will be interesting to watch which path each company will go down for delivery.
The question is “Who is right?” and right now the answer is: it depends on your BI needs and goals. In BI, there is rarely a one-size fits all recommendation, but the pros and cons of each side are fairly clear. If you are comfortable standardizing on only one device, or maintaining apps across multiple operating systems, a highly customizable device-specific approach may work for you. On the other hand, the browser-based approach appeals to be people who need to move quickly, change directions fast, and who want to create mobile apps out of the BI apps that they have already deployed throughout their company.
Regardless of which appeals to you, if you’re like most BI professionals, you’re going to need to pick an approach and move forward quickly.
Shortly after I started my current job, the CEO during a town hall meeting said that he looks forward to the day he can get all his reports on his iPad, and I hope that that day is soon. Do I believe that the desktop is dead and that mobile devices will be the only window into business data? No, not yet, but I do believe that we will continue to see a growing trend towards mobile BI and general data consumption as we live our lives “on the go.”
An edited version of this article appears as a guest blog for LogiXML.
Thanks to LogiXML for inviting me to write on their blog.
