An all-consuming approach to business

Let’s start with a question for you, the reader: In terms of technology usage, what’s the difference between a consumer user and a business user?

If your answer was anything other than “There isn’t any difference”, then I’m afraid you’re wrong. The days where we had different expectations of the technology we used at work from what we use at home are gone. Today, there is no more (or at least we shouldn’t expect) one device that we use in our personal life and another device we use for work. Now it’s just one device -- one smartphone, and/or one tablet -- that we expect can do it all.

The ‘consumerisation’ of IT has been very well-documented. The devices and applications which we use day-to-day are now so proficient and user-friendly that we’ve come to expect that same experience form all of our technology. In the working environment this is now all too often found wanting with employees hamstrung by technologies and user experiences far inferior to what they are used to in their personal lives. In a rather nice twist (at least depending on what side you fall) we are increasingly living in a world where rather than consumer tech following the enterprise by a few years, IT policy in business is now being dictated by consumer technology and user experiences.

With the capabilities of the devices we use for work (BYOD) increasing almost exponentially, this means that not only do businesses need to provide engaging applications, they have to do across more platforms and devices than ever before. Furthermore, if we consider that the average business application takes 3-6 months to develop using traditional tools it’s fair to say that businesses are in something of a quandary. How can they produce the polished applications that users expect, for many different devices quickly and effectively? The ‘app dev’ numbers simply don’t add up.

Why heritage IT is a losing proposition

Those enterprises that persist with the legacy approach will be left behind, unable to connect and engage with the key stakeholders that define their success – customers, partners, suppliers, and employees. Unless they change, the result is inevitable. They will lose customers; partners will form alliances with other companies, and it will be increasingly difficult to recruit and retain the right talent.

Progress® Rollbase® enables businesses to quickly build secure applications for any device and deploy them anywhere, on-premise or in a public, private or hybrid clouds. How quickly? In some cases, just a matter of hours! Gone are the days when you had to use 15 different development environments for 15 different devices – Rollbase allows you to ‘develop once, deploy many’ with just the click of a mouse. It’s just as easy to update applications and ‘apps’ too, as feedback is received in as close to real time as possible.

The benefits of cloud apps are numerous, yet it’s important to ensure the platform which they are deployed on delivers the stability, security and performance that will ensure the user experience that is expected of the apps. If not all those benefits are undone.

Meet me at HP Discover Barcelona 2014

At HP Discover which takes place in Barcelona, December 2-4 I’ll be presenting on the topic of Rapid Development on HP Helion and how this can transform business agility and improve time-to-market.

Here are the full details, make sure you come by if you’re at the show:

• Time: Tuesday 2^nd December, 9.45am CET
• Place: Fira de Barcelona, Spain