One of our customers, forwarded me the following CNN article.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/01/09/ces.apps/index.html

A must read.

For the past 8 years, I have been developing enterprise applications in Java and C#. When I first started developing iPhone apps in Objective-C, I missed the comfort virtual machines (vm) provided me. But, once I completed my first app (with smooth sliding and scrolling views, fancy graphics, and animations) I was happy to give up all vm benefits for the close to the metal nature of  Objective-C. I am so glad I didn’t forget the importance of explicit memory management from my early 90s C programming days.

When you think about it, performance is paramount when it comes to apps running on hardware constrained mobile devices.

Couple of days ago, Omid, our CEO, pointed out an important fact to me: Apps cover not just the traditional application space, they are also the new universal format for content that is both informative and functional.

Considering that the content space is orders of magnitude larger than the application space, it’s no wonder that app market had such an explosive growth in such a short time.

We are just at the beginning of this new phenomenon.

If IBM Rational is serious about EPF, it should contribute all of RUP content, and allow users to freely tailor and blend its content. By now, it’s obvious that OpenUP is not comprehensive enough for real-world projects and had minimal acceptance.

In the last few months. third party software development world has made a historical paradigm shift to cloud-based computing and App store distribution model.

The most significant aspect of this shift is the opening of almost any platform  (televsions, cars, netbooks, phones) to sophisticated third party applications. Each of these platforms has its own unique technology. Previously, these platform were only open to minute number of embedded developers closely working with the hardware vendors and the code was pre-installed on the hardware before it reach the consumer. Now any third party developer can develop apps for any number of these platforms.

Imagine developing an app  that users can download to their iPhones that interacts with an app that they have running on their Samsung HD TV. All through a cloud-based platform. The users simply go to Apple’s and Samsung’s App Stores and purchase the app. Or an app running on Ford cars interacting with Android phones. The possibilities are endless.

The multi-technology and app store distribution model of this new paradigm has significantly increased the complexity of the development process, hence making new generation of software development methodologies critical. For example, we have tailored some of our development processes to include micro iterations (to satisfy quick-time-market business requirement), and app store submission/approval activities.