Today is the last post for this series. If you are looking for the previous posts, you can find them using the links below:
There has been some good discussion during this blog series and below are summary tables that you can use to quickly remind yourself of the key points made in each blog post.
If you are looking for more reading about MADP solutions, I encourage you to check out the 2013 Gartner Mobile App Development Platform MQ.
Happy Reading!
Transformative Mobility
| Factor | MADP Solution | Point Solution | Considerations |
|---|
| Scalability | High | Low - Limited | Point solutions are designed for small work groups. MADP solutions are designed for enterprise scalability. |
| Performance | High | Low - Medium | MADP systems more effectively optimize services between client and network services. |
| Portability | High | Limited | MADP application code is device and operating system agnostic, while point solutions are commonly device and operating system specific. |
Total Cost of Ownership
| Factor | MADP Solution | Point Solution | Considerations |
|---|
| Entry Costs | Medium | Low - Medium | MADP solutions include all development and management components. Point solutions only include an application. |
| TCO Per User | Medium - Low | Medium - High | Multiple point solutions are expensive to manage and restrict work flow. |
Development costs -
first application | Medium | Low | Point solutions are typically out-of-the-box solutions. MADP solutions deliver customizable application templates and 4D development tools. |
Development costs -
subsequent applications | Low | High | With point solutions, each new application must be built from scratch. MADP solutions can use the same middleware layer for many applications. |
| Rollout Costs | Low | High | MADP solutions have integrated rollout tools; point solutions do not. |
| Testing | Low | High | MADP solutions include testing and monitoring tools; point solutions do not. |
| Maintenance and upgrade | Low | High | MADP solutions include management tools and support client upgrades; point solutions typically do not. |
| Required skills | Standard development skills | Solution vendor resources | MADP solutions come with application development environments as add-ons to standard environments like .NET or Eclipse; point solutions often require expensive vendor consulting. |
| User and device management and support costs | Low | High | MADP solutions have integrated management and support; point solutions do not. |
| Security costs | Low | Medium | MADP solutions have integrated security management; point solutions do not. |
