Showing off mobile apps

Salesforce Platform Mobile Services is designed to pave the way for the development of mobile enterprise Apps pave the way. In addition to the development tools, Salesforce.com offers support for analytics and secure access control (single sign-on based on Salesforce Identity).

As part of its mobile services offering, Salesforce.com is launching a new mobile software development kit (announced for June). Called Developer Mobile Packs, the company is bringing an expanded suite of Open Source-based mobile APIs (i.e., common JavaScript frameworks), which developers can use in Real-time on Salesforce.com-Data can access.

Benefit & Differentiation

We believe that integrating and accessing Salesforce.com-Data in Real-time are a key value proposition and strategic differentiator, setting them apart from other, newly emerging Development environments mobile Applications as from IBM, SAP, Oracle to be delimited.

The ecosystem and the ecosystem built around the AppExchange-Platform market that has emerged have given Salesforce.com a solid competitive advantage. The Company already has a vibrant environment of ISVs and developers who are Platform use

So far, the SalesforcePlatform over three million custom Apps developed, a respectable number regardless of the level of detail of the respective company-specific functionalities.

This is particularly significant because the Salesforce-App–Development environment from the Cloud has emerged, which is an additional advantage over other enterprise mobile SDKs.

Placement in the portfolio

The SalesforcePlatform is not a monolithic Platform, but consists of various branches such as force.com, Heroku, database.com, AppExchange and others. Salesforce Platform Mobile Services will be an extension to force.com.

The focus on Open Source signaled that Salesforce.com may be gradually moving away from Apex - its own Java-based system - to more open Java-environments. The development activity seen on Heroku could drive the future shift to Open Java influence for force.com.

Of the three million people who have so far worked on Salesforce.com'sPlatforms developed Apps 2.7 million were developed on Heroku and 360,000 on force.com. Thus, in the long term, Open Java gain in importance compared to Apex.

Mobile vs. traditional apps

It is not easy to increase the proportion of mobile Apps to the three million people working on Salesforce.com.Platforms developed customized Apps to determine. Salesforce.com has so far taken a holistic view of this market, partly because many Apps have been developed for multiple devices or universal environments.

The mobile services offering is designed to help Salesforce accelerate the development of mobile and traditional Applications from each other, as the two types of applications will become increasingly distinct.

Pricing

The Salesforce Platform Mobile Services is still at an early stage, and not all parameters have been defined yet either. Interesting questions are, for example, how and whether the Company the development of mobile Apps to make money (for example, fee-based development of Apps as in the Heroku PaaS environment) and the revenue opportunities for Salesforce.com through mobile services (example: costs for development and integration, for hosting, and for security of mobile Apps/management).

Channel & Services

To gain traction in the consulting and integration market, Salesforce.com plans to support the launch of mobile services with a dedicated training program for the channel.

Already on board are some of the best-known giants in the SI field, such as Accenture, Capgemini and Deloitte. With these partners, Salesforce should have no problems developing its mobile Apps with large companies.

In addition, due to the global presence of these providers, it is expected that all relevant regions can be reached.

George Mironescu, Senior Analyst at PAC, has been working for the market analysis and consulting company for around ten years. He moved to London in 2011, before which he was responsible for the Eastern European market from Bucharest. His key areas of focus include enterprise Application Software, Cloud and Mobility as well as Application Services, Consulting and Systems Integration.