Apple Shines, Google Slows

Appcelerator®, the leading mobile cloud platform for rapidly developing native mobile, desktop, and tablet applications using web technologies, and industry-leading analyst firm International Data Corporation, today announced results from a joint survey of more than 2,700 Appcelerator developers around the world. The survey reveals that developer momentum is shifting back toward Apple as fragmentation and tepid interest in current Android tablets chip away at Google's recent momentum gains. The report as well reveals the rise of the 'mobile cloud', a major trend toward connected mobility that promises to partially address the issue of fragmentation and radically transform the relationship between business and customer.

With over a trillion dollars in market cap at play in today's mobile platform wars, there's little room for error in strategy or execution. This past quarter showed that even strong announcements and solid product introductions can after all leave contenders to Apple's app developer mindshare dominance at risk of falling furthermore behind. Key findings of this survey include:

"Android remains an exceptionally strong OS however the cumulative effect of unresolved issues with the Android ecosystem is taking a toll on developers," notes report series co-author Scott Ellison, VP of Mobile & Connected Consumer Platforms, IDC. "The challenge for Google will be to better align app developer momentum with the momentum of Android device shipment numbers, and therein lies a competitive possibility for Microsoft, Nokia and RIM," he notes.

As mobile device shipments surpass desktop shipments, the demand for software, information and data portability becomes ever greater. The result is that the single, three-tier web model used for the past 15 years is now giving way to a distributed, cloud-based and cloud-connected services model primarily accessed by mobile devices. This dynamic introduces a new "mobile cloud" era in the form of always-on, always connected computing. The possibility for technology in the mobile cloud is huge, as it represents the future of how disparate software, data and information sources will connect to, and help solve the fragmentation issues between, the multiple devices and multiple operating systems that are now defining the new computing world order.

This quarter, Appcelerator and IDC surveyed developers and businesses on the extent to which they use the mobile cloud in their applications and which cloud-enabled and cloud-based services are most important. Key mobile cloud findings include:

The Appcelerator Titanium portfolio today

"With over 20,000 native mobile applications in the Appcelerator Titanium portfolio today, we have seen an overriding theme emerge: mobile and cloud-connectivity are at the same time defining the context and engagement of the key mobile app scenarios in use today," explained Jeff Haynie, CEO, Appcelerator. "It is important for any business looking at mobile to have a strategy around a so then-orchestrated integration between the cloud and mobile applications."

In a very short period of time, multiple mobile OSes, skillsets, mobile devices, form factors, multi-app portfolios, and Android permutations have introduced fragmentation issues six layers deep. Together, there is a dramatic increase in cloud-enabled and cloud-based services coming from every major player in the IT industry. The imperative for any business now is to determine a mobile strategy in other words flexible enough to withstand the complexities and rapid changes coming from both the mobile platform and cloud perspectives. This survey helps companies understand how these two trends are coming at the same time and how a then thought out strategy can help overcome the challenge of fragmentation to capitalize on the enormous possibility that mobile and cloud offers today.