How Cross-Platform Technology Can Facilitate Easier Creation of Business Apps

Applications for mobile devices – apps – have seen unprecedented growth in importance. Ever better apps keep propelling the proliferation of mobile computing. App development is rather easy, particularly if it is based on Web technology. However, implementing apps that are user friendly and useful in the long-run is cumbersome. Thereby, it typically is expensive for corporate developers. Nonetheless, business apps are embraced by enterprises. To overcome the overhead of developing separately for multiple platforms and to mitigate the problems of device fragmentation, crossplatform development approaches are employed. While many such approaches exist, few have found widespread usage. In this chapter, we argue what the path towards future solutions could look like. We thereby take a rather technological look, but always keep business-orientation in mind. Our findings suggest that much effort is needed to enable the next generations of business apps. However, such apps will provide many merits and possibilities. Moreover, they provide the chance to master several of today’s challenges. How Cross-Platform Technology Can Facilitate Easier Creation of Business Apps Tim A. Majchrzak University of Agder, Norway Jan C. Dageförde University of Münster, Germany Jan Ernsting University of Münster, Germany Christoph Rieger University of Münster, Germany Tobias Reischmann University of Münster, Germany How Cross-Platform Technology Can Facilitate Easier Creation of Business Apps