The app gap is large and growing larger every day --- there simply aren't enough mobile app developers who can write native apps for iOS and Android, much less Windows Phone and now, Windows 10. Those who have the skills charge top dollar, as do independent developers who hire themselves out on a project basis to enterprises.
An article in Modern Mobility, "Mind the App Dev Skills Gap," details just how bad the problem is. John Jackson, IDC research vice president, told the magazine, "It's not a sustainable model to go out to a third party and spend $10,000, $50,000 or $350,000 to develop, perfect and maintain [native] applications."
The answer also isn't to try and hire developers with native mobile app development skills, he says. He told the magazine, "It’s unreasonable to expect that most enterprises at this time are going to be able to attract and retain native devs. So you need some tools and you need a bag of tricks."
One of the most important tools, the article notes, is a cross-platform development suite, which allows you to build a mobile app once, and then easily deploy it to different operating systems. One of the tools that the article recommends is Alpha Anywhere.
In addition, the article says, enterprises should carefully consider the kinds of app they need developed. Not every app needs to look and work like the most highly polished consumer app. Jackson told the magazine, "It doesn’t have to look like Facebook. It can probably be a bit more functional, and you can dispense with some of the aesthetics."
That means that you don't necessarily need highly experienced developers to build the apps. You can, instead, turn to domain experts and line-of-business staff to write the apps using a no-code or low-code tool. With a tool like this, people without significant technical or user interface experience can quickly write useful apps.
That's where Alpha Anywhere comes in again. Not only is it cross-platform, but it lets staff write mobile apps without knowing coding, but also has the flexibility so that those with code-writing experience can write their own code as well. Learn more about "Low-Code" development with Alpha Anywhere here!
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