It is All About the API, Not the App

As IT becomes more consumerized, and cloud computing becomes more of a reality, the app itself is becoming nearly irrelevant across enterprises. As the desktop PC model has morphed into the network, and as the network has become just another extension of the Internet, it is all about the API, the ways that apps talk to each other that has made them front and center to today's corporate computing infrastructures.

Part of this trend is that more of our business computing has gone mobile: last year smartphones outsold PCs for the first time.

Trying to wrest control over this rapidly evolving situation is impossible. IT can try to control which phones are being used across the enterprise, however it is a doomed exercise. "That results in new apps that IT has to maintain and update, apps that consume storage space on smartphones and tablets, and apps that can take months to prototype, develop, test, and deploy," says Price. "And they nevertheless require the purchase and installation of the mobile development software and, often, the use of consultants to integrate the software and provide implementation and training assistance, since IT skills are mandatory."

"There are two things that consumerization of IT and the cloud bring to the table: atomization of applications and distribution of processing, in passing, two of the largest promises of true cloud computing," says CRM guru, Esteban Kolsky, founder and principal at ThinkJar consulting.

Data creation, movement, storage and retrieval has changed. Self-contained on-site networks are going away and a new infrastructure that services a mix of on-site and cloud will be the new normal very in the near future. If your organization is making the move to the cloud, learn from the experts at ReadWriteWeb and avoid these common pitfalls.