The mobile device market is quite fragment these days. We have the mighty iPhone , Andorid , Blackberry,Simbian, Maemo, Brew ,Windows Mobile powered devices and so on. Publishing software compatible with all these mobile platform is quite a challenge. What is the current situation , regarding the mobile cross-platform development?

I will not make an exhaustive market analysis here, but will share some thoughts. The mobile device market is changing rapidly during the last few years. One reason is the entrance of the new major players – iPhone and Andorid. They forced the old players like Nokia, Sony Erricson , RIM, Microsoft and everybody else to hurry up and catch the train. Apple gave us the new fresh air, which the mobile business needed for years. The old dinosaurs chasing low-risk profits forgot about the main engine of the current technological business – the innovation!
Apple was the one to make them remember that innovation (both technological and business) is not a dirty word and actually may increase profits. Yes the innovation and risk go hand in hand, but that’s way : ideas, passion, commitment and risk.

The following chart provides information about the preferences of the users to some of the current mobile platforms:

The chart is to gave the overall tendency. And the tendency is we do not have a major player and it is still important to target multiple mobile platforms with a single code base. I must say that the figures here are showing the end-user preferences. The preferences of the business user are quite different, because besides the fancy UI and the improved user experience there are may other factor considered by the businesses like robustness, security, development experience, management, integration to existing infrastructure and others.

The ability to target multiple mobile platforms is dependent on the organization skillset and the corresponding platforms development tools. The following table contains a brief comparison between some of the major players in terms of development tools and technologies:

By RUSLAN TRIFONOV’S

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