What is RMAD? Rapid Mobile App Development for Business

A guide to help you understand what Rapid Mobile App Development (RMAD) is and how it can help your business.
Gartner recommends RMAD software tools to help companies that need business apps but don't have the developers to build them. Read predictions about Rapid Mobile App Development, how it can help development teams and how to select the best platform.

RMAD is a faster way to develop business mobile apps

What is Rapid Application Development?

Rapid mobile application development solutions are development processes, software platforms, graphical user interfaces or web applications that help developers produce applications faster. These approaches produce mobile and web apps that look like native apps but take less time to produce than hand-coding native applications.

What is RMAD?

Gartner analysts coined the term RMAD (Rapid Mobile Application Development) to describe a new category of software to help people develop business apps quickly and easily. These no-code or low-code tools allow IT or business users to do cross-platform mobile app development faster than ever before.

Gartner analysts explain: "Using development tools that can produce apps more rapidly is crucial for enterprises to help bridge the gap between mobile app demand and supply."

Who uses RMAD?

Because this software does a lot of the work for app builders, these tools can often be used by experienced software developers or business users. Many drag-and-drop tools are a fit for people who cannot do native development and have never coded before.

Why should companies consider RMAD?

Demand for mobile apps will continue to skyrocket, and businesses' ability to meet that demand will fall behind -- far behind. Gartner warns that by the end of 2017, "market demand for mobile app development services will grow at least five times faster than internal IT organization's capacity to deliver them." That spells trouble for application developers who are barely meeting custom mobile app demands in the enterprise today. But help is on the way: cue RMAD.

The big problem will be in the enterprise, Gartner says. By 2019, mobile phone sales will reach 2.1 billion units. That, in turn, "will fuel demand for apps in the enterprise that meet the high performance and usability of consumer apps."

Gartner Analysts explain what RMAD is and how it can help IT departments get more apps built.

Employees and employers alike want custom business apps that are slick and easy to use. They want these apps to have outstanding workflow and productivity capabilities, with outstanding: security, data integration, offline access, and more.

Gartner Principal Research Analyst Adrian Leow said: "We're seeing demand for mobile apps outstrip available development capacity, making quick creation of apps even more challenging. Mobile strategists must use tools and techniques that match the increase in mobile app needs within their organizations."

Gartner recommends RMAD tools as a way to solve the problem.

How does RMAD Software Work?

RMAD platforms use a low-code or no-code approach to app development. Low-code development platforms allow people with little programming experience to quickly build a mobile app for iOS and Android mobile devices. RMAD tools include backend integration and front-end app development for cross-platform development. So even business users and domain experts can build apps with outstanding user experiences.

Who are the top RMAD Vendors?

According to Gartner, there are hundreds of vendors building rapid mobile app development solutions. These include no-code vendors and low-code vendors. These vendors have a host of solutions for app development, app design, secure storage, cloud deployment on Microsoft Azure or AWS, virtual machines and more.

Some top no-code vendors include AppyPie, BuildFire and iBuildApp. Some of the top low-code vendors include Mendix and Outsystems.

Alpha Software is a unique leader in the category because it offers both no-code and low-code development environments and consistently gets 5-star reviews from customers saying it's the best mobile app development software on the market today.

Try Free RMAD Software

Try your hand at RMAD right now and start building enterprise apps with the Alpha Anywhere mobile app development platform. You can use Alpha Anywhere Community Edition and build all the apps your business needs for free.

Need more custom help? Contact Alpha Software for RMAD Professional Services and we'll build your apps for you.

RMAD: Gartner's Advice

Another Gartner study, "Market Guide for Rapid Mobile App Development Tools," reports:

"By 2018, more than half of all business-to-employee (B2E) mobile apps will be created by enterprise business analysts using codeless tools." The report concludes, "IT leaders can use these rapid development tools to address the global shortage of skilled mobile software engineers by increasing the pool of people who can deliver mobile apps."

Get the RMAD Buyer's Guide and Learn How to Select an RMAD Platform

Need a sherpa to guide you through the process? We're here to help.

RMAD Buyers' Guide will help you understand and select the right software If the rapid app development platform you select does not have the right combination of capabilities, app hosting, services, and training, you could find crafting apps with great user experiences and scaling them very painful and costly. We've produced a complete buying guide for anyone looking to evaluate and purchase this type of app development and any operating system.

The Alpha Software Rapid Mobile App Development Buyer's Guide discusses the criteria you should look for and test as you look at app development platforms or drag-and-drop tools. To illustrate how to test the software, the guide includes:

examples of modern RMAD apps, their features, and the development time required to complete them.
the latest data on how developers and business analysts are building modern business apps. with RMAD.
real reviews of RMAD development products by experienced developers building enterprise apps.
a section specifically focused on RMAD software pricing, including understanding licensing models, negotiating the best software price from vendors, and how to scale your deployment affordably.

Additional Resources:

Download the Alpha Anywhere low-code platform: Build apps that run on any mobile platform.

Select the right RMAD software for your needs: Access the Buyer's Guide to RMAD Platforms

Further Reading:

There's a new player in RMAD, Microsoft (not to be confused with Quest RMAD - Recovery Manager for Active Directory). Read how Microsoft PowerApps compares to Alpha Software.