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Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved.

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Appcelerator / IDC
Q1 2011 Mobile Developer Report
Summary
Appcelerator and IDC surveyed 2,235 Appcelerator Titanium developers from January 10-12, 2011 on perceptions
surrounding mobile OS priorities, feature priorities, and mobile development plans in 2011. The survey reveals how new
entrants to the tablet market are changing application development priorities and how businesses large and small are
accelerating their efforts to build a mobile application strategy to deal with an explosion in apps, mobile devices,
operating systems, and capabilities.

This quarter’s report shows that Google has nearly caught up to Apple in smart phone popularity and is closing the gap
in tablets. Microsoft and RIM made solid gains through their product line update, while Google TV and Apple TV interest
dropped off. As these trends unfold, it is also becoming clear that the days of mobile app experimentation are over.
This year, developers and businesses expect to triple their app development efforts and the average developer is now
building for four different devices. Meanwhile, a dramatic increase in the integration of geo-location, social, and
cloud-connectivity services underscores new focus on sustaining user engagement, while increased plans to integrate
advertising and in-app purchase business models points to a new focus on longer-term financial viability over free brand
affinity apps.

New Android Tablets to Challenge iPad 2 for Developer Mindshare

With 85 new, primarily Android tablets announced at CES, developers are pushing these devices to the top of their
priority list. Headlines from this survey round include:

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 2


• Tablet interest spikes across the board: Android Tablet interest jumped 12 points in three months to
74% saying they are ‘very interested’ in developing for these devices. Interest in BlackBerry Playbook
nearly doubled from 16% to 28%. iPad rose three points to 87%, while webOS Tablet interest remained
flat at 16%.

• With the Android Tablet market set to explode this year and the recent success of Samsung’s
Android-based Galaxy Tab, 57% of developers say price will be the most important factor for success,
followed by minimized fragmentation (49%) and then Android Honeycomb OS capabilities (33%).

• For Apple, topping the iPad 2 wish list: new camera capabilities, a USB connector, and an improved
retina display.

• Android phone interest (87% ‘very interested’) rose 5 points to tie with iPad and close to within 5
points of iPhone (92%). Yet Apple continues to be the number one priority with 10 billion app downloads
to date. A common refrain: after iPhone, do I go Android or iPad?

• While Tablets are hot, connected TVs are not. Interest in building mobile apps for connected TVs
decreased across the board as Google dialed down its launch plans, TV networks blocked access to
their content and developers increasingly focused on tablets. Google TV interest slumped 11 points to
33% while Apple TV dropped 10 points to 30%. Developer interest in other alternatives like Yahoo TV,
Boxee, and Roku was also minimal.

• Windows Phone 7 rose 8 points to 36% ‘very interested’ due to a better-than-expected launch.
Respondents said that Windows Phone’s improved UI was a critical factor for the increase.

• Amazon’s newly announced Android Appstore shows early promise. While 82% of developers are
interested in distributing their apps through the Android Market, 37% are interested in the Amazon
Appstore, 13% for Verizon VCAST, and 9% for GetJar.

• Interestingly, developers are about equally as interested in the Mac App Store (39%) as they are
Amazon’s new Android Appstore.

2011: The Race to Build a Mobile App Strategy

The proliferation of apps, devices, platforms, and capabilities is causing businesses large and small to race to define
a sustainable mobile strategy. This quarter, Appcelerator and IDC introduce a new “Mobile Maturity Model” to identify
three phases of mobility adoption shaping up in the enterprise and consumer markets: ‘exploration’, ‘acceleration’,
and ‘innovation’.

Last year, most respondents (44%) said they were in the exploration phase of their mobile strategy. A simple app or two
– typically on iPhone – and a focus on free brand-affinity apps was standard practice. This year, 55% of respondents said
they are now shifting into the ‘acceleration’ phase. This phase is defined by the following trends and mobile strategies:

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 3


• On average, each respondent said they plan to develop 6.5 apps this year, up 183% over last year.

• Businesses are increasingly taking a multi-platform approach. On average, respondents said they
plan to deploy apps on at least 4 different devices (eg: iPhone, iPad, Android Phone, Android Tablet)
this year, up two-fold over 2010.

• Ubiquitous cloud-connectivity: 87% of developers said their apps will connect to a public or private
cloud this year, up from only 64% deploying cloud-connected apps last year.

• Always connected, personal, and contextual: in addition to cloud services, integration of social and
location services will explode in 2011 and will define the majority of mobile experiences this year. Interest
in commerce apps is also on the rise, with PayPal beating Apple as the #1 preferred method for payments.

• Business models are evolving along with these more engaging mobile app experiences. Developers
are shifting away from free brand affinity apps and becoming less reliant on $0.99 app sales. Increas-
ingly, the focus is on user engagement models such as in-app purchasing and advertising, with mobile
commerce on the horizon.

• Outsource goes in-house: the enterprise takes control of its mobile destiny. 81% of respondents said
they insource their development, with the majority saying they have an integrated in-house web and
mobile team.

These trends are summarized into four perspectives that any business can consider when building a mobile strategy:
platform support, customer experience, development skills, and technology architecture. Understanding these perspec-
tives will enable a business to maximize the opportunity that mobile offers while minimizing the challenge of proliferation
and increasing complexity from the devices, capabilities, and operating systems that are analyzed in this report. 

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 4


Survey Findings
With so many product launches, new app stores, and a holiday season thrown in for good measure, our first area of
focus is understanding how these events affect the broader mobile landscape. How did the news out of CES affect
platform priorities? Do developers and businesses see Amazon or the new Mac Store as viable? Is Microsoft the
‘comeback kid’? Here’s a deeper look at these and other trends that are shaping developer perceptions.

After iPhone, do I go Android … or iPad?

This quarter, Android phones equaled iPad in popularity. One of the common questions we get at Appcelerator and IDC
is, “after iPhone, should I do an Android app or go iPad?” The answer typically depends on business objectives, but the
conundrum is certainly highlighted in this quarter’s results (BTW: our common recommendation for pure market share
and design reuse, think Android. For enhancing the experience, go iPad).

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 5


A look back at how perceptions have evolved over the past year:

Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry phones posted solid gains on their new product launches. Compared to webOS tablet
and MeeGo device no-shows, these two players remain solidly in the game for developer mindshare.

How about those Android Tablets?

The Android phone vs. iPad question is about to become even more complex as Android tablets enter the scene.
Interest in these new devices shot up 12 points to 74%, clearly indicating a tablet showdown in the making.
BlackBerry also fared well, nearly doubling the interest in their new device:

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 6


With Android tablets clearly on the minds of many developers, we looked at the critical success factors for these new
devices from the developer perspective. Surprisingly, it wasn’t Android Honeycomb, Google’s upcoming tablet-focused OS:

Fragmentation has always been at the top of the Android concern list, but price coming out on top of fragmentation and
hardware/software capabilities was a surprising finding. We attribute this primarily to the sheer scale of what Android
has become to the larger technology industry. From Samsung to Motorola to HTC to LG to Toshiba and countless others,
if you add up the market capitalization supporting these new devices and look at the fundamental problem of how these
players can truly differentiate, the biggest variable that will have the most impact (at least in the near-term) is price.
Developers eye the enticing possibility of a sub-$100 tablet and think mass-consumer opportunity.

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 7


What about the iPad 2?

No real surprise on camera support, but we found USB connectivity as number two to be interesting. With support for
Airplay to be released to developers in iOS 4.3 and the possibility of a USB connector, the combination makes the
iPad 2 much more extensible than before. Think of the iPad in a retail scenario as a point-of-sale device or in the living
room as a command console for home entertainment and video games. Better support for 3rd party peripherals and
content streaming will be a driving factor in keeping iPad ahead of the competition.

Connected TVs: so promising three months ago

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 8


Last quarter, we looked in-depth at Google and Apple’s upcoming connected TVs. There was significant interest in
the idea of reaching such a mass market on the same OS. Fast forward three months and this is no longer the case.
Our read on the downturn in interest is that this is due to the avalanche of new mobile devices coming into the market.
It doesn’t help that Google had some high profile missteps with engineering delays, TV networks blocking content, and
TVs controlled with 50+ button remotes.

New app stores spark developer interest

Amazon and Apple have made significant news in the past few months on their new Android and Mac App Stores.
Here’s a look at how Amazon’s Appstore compares to Google’s and others:

And here are the findings around developer interest in the Mac App Store:

What’s interesting here is that both Amazon and Apple’s new Mac App Store have about the same interest from develop-
ers (high-30’s). This interest level is about the same as Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry, but lower than initial enthu-
siasm for either the iPad last January or Android tablets late last year. In other words, we consider this to be a vote of
opportunistic interest. Developers are saying, “I’m interested, but not enough to place a major bet”. As a side note, it’s
interesting to see the relatively low marks for carrier app stores (in this case, Verizon). With 10 billion app sales to Apple’s
credit, carriers will need to work much harder to show that they can make a significant market for developers than estab-
lished commerce veterans Apple and Amazon.

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 9


More of Everything. Now.
The Need to Accelerate Your Mobile App Strategy
More apps, more devices, more operating systems, and more capabilities. Each year, Apple adds about 1,000 new
capabilities into iOS. Each year, hundreds of new tablets, phones, and devices in-between make their way into, literally,
billions of user hands. BlackBerry is up. Windows is up. Amazon is up. Even the Mac is up. What’s a business to do?

This survey round, we took a deep look at how companies are responding to this explosion in new opportunity. We
asked respondents across a range of issues on what they did last year in mobile and how their plans are evolving this
year. We broke this analysis down into five parts.

Building a Strategy, Part I: The Shift from the Desktop Web to Cloud-Connected Mobility

This chart highlights three major trends:

Trend #1: Rapid Innovation


Last year, on average, businesses and developers created 2.3 apps per company. This year, that number is 6.5, or a
183% increase in app development. Development lifecycles are becoming important. With so much innovation taking
place at the OS and hardware level and app production on the rise, it’s becoming more important than ever to decrease
not only time-to-market for an application, but the update cycle time as well.

Trend #2: Cross-Platform Opportunity


More businesses of all sizes are also increasingly going cross-platform, with total devices doubling from two to four (eg:
iPhone, Android Phone, iPad, and Android Tablet) per surveyed company. As shown above, Android Tablets, BlackBerry
phones, and even Windows Phone 7 are also on the rise.

Trend #3: Ubiquitous Cloud-Connectivity


As we enter a “Post PC” era, there is a rapid shift toward connecting mobile applications to the cloud. Last year, 64%
of businesses said that they connected their applications to the cloud. This year, that number jumps to 87%. Even more
interesting is that this increase is not limited to either the private cloud (eg: backend web services) or public cloud
(eg: Facebook, Flickr, eg: YouTube), but both private and public cloud services.

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 10


What does this mean?

As rapid innovation, app production, support for multiple devices, and cloud connectivity increase, businesses
everywhere are shifting their energy away from a 3-tier web model to a distributed application model:

This shift means dealing with several major information architecture issues, including:

(a) Architectural changes from three-tier, browser-based web architecture to


multiple device connected public and private cloud orchestration architecture.

(b) Implications of data ownership and security as information moves into the
hands of a distributed workforce.

(c) Device management as ownership shifts from employer-liable to


employee-liable/provided.

(d) Changes from business logic in the cloud to a mix of business and
application logic in the application on multiple devices and data connectivity
and logic in the cloud.

(e) Changes to application lifecycle management and the implications


on tools, internal systems and skills.

As a result of the challenges in moving from a centralized to decentralized model, it is becoming important to securely
deliver new client-side services and data, develop a repeatable strategy for connecting distributed devices to the cloud,
and embrace new, uniquely mobile, business models.

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 11


Building a Strategy, Part II: A Voracious Appetite for Services
as Apps Become More Local and More Social

In addition to cloud-connectivity, the use of a user’s location to set context and their social graph to drive adoption is
becoming nearly ubiquitous. As well, the rapid availability and adoption of new mobile services like in-app purchasing,
push notifications, and novel uses for the camera like barcode scanning is also increasing the need for a company to
respond to the increase in application complexity by finding a flexible way to integrate new capabilities into their mobile
applications as they become available.

Building a Strategy, Part III: Beyond the Brand Affinity App

The increase in demand for cloud services, location-based services, and social networking is also altering the business
model landscape. Rather than selling a purely content-based application, these apps offer enhanced value based on
deeper user engagement that drives additional and sustained usage over time. Concurrently this shift towards continu-
ous value delivery to users lays the foundation for developers’ rapidly increasing interest in advertising and in-application
purchasing. Developers are now demonstrably shifting into longer-term strategies through enhanced and continuous
value delivery which in turn supports advertising, in-app purchasing, and mobile commerce business models. As a
result, there will be fewer applications given away for free with “brand loyalty/engagement” objectives without a sense of
how app development and support costs will be recovered, and less reliance on apps whose financial business models
start and end with the initial app purchase.

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 12


Building a Strategy, Part IV: Outsource Goes In-house

To stay ahead of the curve, more and more businesses are moving their application development in-house. Increasingly,
integrated web and mobile teams are becoming responsible for a company’s mobile strategy in order to have complete
control over campaigns that span websites, Facebook pages, and mobile devices.

The other driver for in-sourcing development is to keep up with the rapid pace of innovation. Since application lifecycles
can be as short as a year and the need for updates can be as short as a few days, companies are finding that outsourc-
ing is a major headache after version one goes out the door. Short development sprints, internally managed by a team
that has complete control over an app lifecycle is becoming more and more necessary to retain competitive differentia-
tion, reduce complexity, keep up with the influx in device and service capabilities, and stay on top of the demands for
rapid innovation.

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 13


Building a Strategy, Part V: Accelerating Through the Mobile Maturity Model

All of these dynamics– from more apps to more platforms to more services to more business models – mean a funda-
mental shift is occurring in how businesses build and manage their mobile strategy. To put these trends into perspective
and provide a prescriptive way to understand where your business fits, we’ve developed a “Mobile Maturity Model” that
shows three levels of adoption: “Exploration”, “Acceleration”, and “Innovation”. We asked developers and businesses to
identify where they were in 2010 and where they plan to be in 2011. We then define four different perspectives for view-
ing these maturity phases. As seen below, the shift to the “acceleration” phase is well underway:

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 14


Platforms
“I need my iPhone app” was a common phase in 2010. No more. Cross-platform is mandatory, as is deploying to
multiple form factors like tablets. In the third innovation phase, a business is thinking about possibilities across all
major platforms and devices.

Customer
This perspective considers the shift away from simple content-based apps that inform or entertain to more complex and
engaging applications that make use of location, social, and cloud services to transactional applications such as mobile
commerce. As the customer experience evolves, so does application sophistication, customer expectations, business
transformation opportunities, and the underlying business models. Free branded apps and a reliance on purely app store
sales give way to advertising, in-application purchasing, and mobile commerce.

People
As shown earlier, there is an increasing shift from outsourcing to in-house development. What starts as a tactical out-
sourcing of development “to get an app done fast” quickly turns into a more strategic discussion around competitive
advantage, control over a sustainable long-term mobile strategy, and rapid time-to-market considerations.

Technology
In order to meet the demand for more apps, new devices, frequent updates, and deeper customer engagement, a
business needs to drive down costs, time-to-market, and complexity by developing and leveraging reusable compo-
nents. For example, a media company needs to consider how to plug into its content library, backend analytics, video
streaming, social connectivity, location-based notifications, and advertising systems in every application it produces.
This enormously challenging exercise becomes exponentially harder and more complex for every new application and
platform. Ultimately, this results in the need for a cross-platform, fully integrated mobile architecture that spans a
company’s entire app portfolio.

Concluding Thoughts
As important as it is to understand what the mobile trends and priorities are and how they’re evolving, Appcelerator and
IDC believe it is even more important to have a long-term, yet flexible mobile strategy in place to deal with the explosion
of opportunity that mobile offers. The four perspectives discussed in the mobile maturity model above provide a founda-
tion upon which a business can begin planning a well-constructed mobile architecture that stands the test of time.

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 15


About the Appcelerator / IDC Q1 2011 Mobile Developer Report

This survey was conducted from January 10-12, 2011. Appcelerator and IDC surveyed 2,235 of over 100,000 developers
who use Appcelerator’s Titanium application development platform on their plans, interests and perceptions of the major
mobile and tablet OS providers. Developers were individually invited from Appcelerator’s user registration database to
complete a web response survey. A raffle for a free Parrot AR Drone was made and only one response per user was
allowed. Respondents’ answers were given freely with no incentive or compensation for their participation.

Appcelerator developers represent a uniquely broad spectrum of backgrounds. 32% of respondents classify themselves
as independent developers, with the other 68% coming from businesses. Appcelerator has a global audience, with 39%
surveyed stating they live in North America, 43% in Europe, and 18% throughout the rest of the world. Note also that
Appcelerator developers come from a web development background, so although they build applications with
Appcelerator Titanium, they are used to working across multiple platforms.

About Appcelerator
Appcelerator is the leading enterprise-grade, cross-platform development solution on the market today, with over 1.5
million developers using its software to power more than 10,000 cloud-connected mobile, desktop, and web applica-
tions used by tens of millions of users every day. The company’s flagship offering, Appcelerator Titanium, is the only
open source platform to enable fully native, cross-platform development, from a single codebase, at web development
speed for these three platforms. Appcelerator’s customers can leverage their existing skills and open, industry standard
technologies to decrease time-to-market and development costs, increase customer adoption and revenues, and enjoy
greater flexibility and control. For more information, please visit www.appcelerator.com.

About IDC
International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events
for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals,
business executives, and the investment community make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and
business strategy. More than 1000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry
opportunities and trends in over 110 countries worldwide. For more than 46 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to
help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world’s leading technology media,
research, and events company. You can learn more about IDC by visiting www.idc.com.

Appcelerator is a registered trademark of Appcelerator Inc. Appcelerator Titanium is a trademark of Appcelerator Inc.
International Data Corporation and IDC are registered trademarks of International Data Group, Inc.
All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 16


Report Inquiries:

Scott Schwarzhoff Scott Ellison
VP, Marketing - Appcelerator VP Mobile & Consumer Connected Platforms - IDC
sschwarzhoff@appcelerator.com sellison@idc.com
Office: 650-269-5962 Office: 650-350-6440

Media Inquiries:
Michael Shirer
Carmen Hughes IDC
Ignite PR press@idc.com
Carmen@ignitepr.com Office: 508-935-4200
Office: 650.227.3280 ext. 1
Mobile: 650.576.6444

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 17

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