Independent Study Finds Enterprises Transitioning to Web to Develop More Complex Apps, Faster and for More Devices
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., June 9, 2015 — Sencha, the company providing a unified platform for designing, developing, deploying and managing cross-platform web applications, today announced the results of a May 2015 commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Sencha, The Rise of Web Technology. Surveying 120 senior technology leaders in North America and Western Europe, the study found that web technology, as compared to native, is becoming increasingly critical to organizations’ web and mobile application strategies. This is a result of enterprises looking for approaches beyond native development to manage the overall complexity of application development and maintenance, meet their customers’ demands, accelerate time to market and improve quality and overall development productivity.
“I believe that the findings of the Forrester study resonate with what we’re seeing among our customers,” said Art Landro, CEO of Sencha. “I’ve travelled the world to meet with many Sencha customers, and the conversations often come back to the same challenge: how can we make sure our employees and customers get the application experience they’re looking for regardless of what device they’re on? As a response to that need, we recently launched the Sencha Web Application Lifecycle Management Platform. This platform is designed to remove the complexities and cost associated with every facet of application development lifecycle, from design to deployment to ongoing management, for every conceivable device used by an organization’s employees, contractors or partners.”
The Forrester study found that organizations are under immense pressure to deliver highly sophisticated and long-lived web and mobile applications to their customers. At the same time, customers expect to access these applications on a wide range of devices including desktops, tablets, and smartphones. To remain relevant in a market where the rate of change is accelerating, two findings illustrate how companies are seeking to meet customers’ changing web and mobile application needs:
- A 27 percent shift away from native development to web technology. Companies are increasingly selecting web technology over native to improve development efficiency and “do more with less” by building apps with greater sophistication and complexity in the same amount of time.
- 63 percent report that web technology is critical to their web and mobile application strategies. Web technology has gone mainstream with a majority of companies reporting that it is critical to their application strategy for meeting the increased customer demand across multiple systems and platforms.
Driving these two findings, the study identified a number of challenges associated with application development practices, including:
- The sophistication of customer demand is increasing. Not only are customer expectations in constant flux, but the pace of change is increasing.
- 51 percent of companies believe that the mobile and web application user experience will become significantly more sophisticated in the next year.
- Many companies find that customers expect more and more relevant content to be available on any device, whether mobile or desktop.
- The demands placed on development teams are increasing while capacity is not. Despite the digital environment becoming more complex, companies are not meeting that increased level of sophistication with increased investment levels for their development teams.
- 53 percent of companies in the study did not plan to increase the capacity of the development teams, and
- 34 percent were not planning to increase timelines when developing new web and mobile applications.
- Multi-device security is a critical criteria for the enterprise. Securing data remains a barrier to successfully deploy applications.
- 74 percent of companies running successful web and mobile apps view security as the top criterion that defines the success of an application, a sentiment that increases the larger the number of applications that a company builds, deploys and manages.
- 40 percent of companies struggle with their inability to secure data on user devices.
The study found that the more successful companies, defined as having 75 percent or more of their web and mobile apps judged to be successful by user adoption and sentiment, see more complexity as a key to staying innovative and ahead of their competition. These same companies tended to invest more in web technologies compared to the unsuccessful companies. To keep pace with industry demands, the study showed it is critical for companies to invest in technologies and platforms that help them meet their customers’ cross-platform web and mobile application needs, both as they exist now and in the future.
On June 18, 2015, guest Forrester Research Analyst Michael Facemire, together with Gautam Agrawal, product management director at Sencha, will join a webcast to discuss trends in the application development market as well as findings from the study. To register, please click here.
To access the full Forrester study, please visit: http://pages.sencha.com/Forrester_Research.html
