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Here's what a Developer Says About the Mobile Development Skills Gap

Dion McCormick
One of the best ways to track industry trends is to check in with companies that train developers to update their skill sets. These companies frequently notice trends before anyone else, because developers come to them when they find that their skills don't match those required by a changing market. So to tune you into the latest industry trends we're starting a series of interviews with Mark Flanagan, founder and CEO of Twin Peaks Research, which helps developers get the most out of their investment in Alpha Anywhere by providing them with high-quality, professional instruction delivered by an expert staff. In this first piece, Mark provides insight into what he says is the most important trend in mobile development today and discusses the benefits of leveraging your teams web skills for mobile development.

Solving the Skills Gap: Leveraging Web Skills for Mobile

"There's a huge skills gap when it comes to developing mobile business applications," he says. "Many developers don't have the skills to take full advantage of the complete range of mobile devices that are available and to create applications that will satisfy the user at a very high level from a user experience or user interface point of view." He adds that "Based on the discussions we've had with our customers, the lack of mobile business application developers is a real problem, and it seems to be getting worse. This, in turn, is creating a rapidly expanding development backlog for the business apps that users want and need. Consequently, budget and time to market are huge issues." The natural instinct at many enterprises is to outsource mobile development because of the gap. But he warns that "If an organization goes to a third party they lose control of the development process and the costs are exorbitant compared to an in-house development effort." Organizations typically have a wealth of Web developers on staff. Flanagan advises that "If an organization can leverage its existing web development resources to address its business app requirements it's a huge win." That way, development can stay in-house, saving time and money, and keeping tighter control over the development process. This is particularly important because "the demand for great mobile business apps is accelerating." How to turn Web developers into mobile developers? Flanagan says that a combination of Alpha Anywhere and Twin Peaks Research training courses does the trick. Twin Peaks offers introductory and advanced courses in its own classrooms, online or at enterprises' own locations. Here's where to go for more information.
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About Author

Dion McCormick
Dion McCormick

Dion McCormick, Lead Solutions Engineer at Alpha Software, is a recognized expert on agile application development. He helps enterprise development teams around the world transition from slow legacy approaches to high-performance mobile, web, and desktop development using the Alpha Anywhere platform.

The Alpha platform is the only unified mobile and web app development and deployment environment with distinct “no-code” and “low-code” components. Using the Alpha TransForm no-code product, business users and developers can take full advantage of all the capabilities of the smartphone to turn any form into a mobile app in minutes, and power users can add advanced app functionality with Alpha TransForm's built-in programming language. IT developers can use the Alpha Anywhere low-code environment to develop complex web or mobile business apps from scratch, integrate data with existing systems of record and workflows (including data collected via Alpha TransForm), and add additional security or authentication requirements to protect corporate data.

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