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Q6  Why Are Mobile Systems Increasingly Important?   143


                                   Hardware        Software         Data             Procedures      People
                     Impact of mobile  Many, many more  Compact interfaces;  More data, but  Always on, always  Ability to thrive
                     systems growth  mobile devices  new technology for  more information?  at work. Employee  in a dynamic
                                   will be sold.   active users;    Less device real  lifestyle becomes  environment
                                                   application scaling.  estate means fewer  hybrid of personal  more important.
                                                                    ads possible.    and professional.
                     Industry changes  PCs less important;  html5, css3, and  Loss of control.  Personal mobile  More part-time
                                   high demand     JavaScript increase  Ad model in  devices at work.  employees and
                                   (and requirement)  capability of  danger?                         independent
                                   for innovative  thin-clients.                                     contractors.
                                   devices as well
                                   as cheap copycats.
                     Career        Jobs for mobile  New technology  Reporting and data  Innovative use of  Independent
                     opportunities  device sales,  levels the playing  mining even   just-in-time data.  contractors
                                   marketing,      …eld for html5.  more important.  Need for adjusting  (and some
                                   support.        Business expertise  Design of e‹ective  business processes  employees) work
                                                   needed for mobile  mobile reports.  gives another  where and when
                                                   requirements. New                 premium to non-  they want. What
                                                   companies!                        routine problem  is this new social
                                                                                     solvers.        organism?


            Figure 4-22
            Five Components of Mobile
            Change and Opportunity

                                       from the very smallest to the very largest, while providing a user experience appropriate to
                                       the device’s size.
                                           Rapid technology change in mobile software continually levels the playing field. Today,
                                       for example, expert programmers in Objective-C better not relax. html5 and css3 are gain-
                                       ing popularity, and they will reduce the need for Objective-C expertise. Further, as you
                                       learned in Q5, while languages like Objective-C are difficult and time-consuming to learn,
                                       html5, css3, and JavaScript are less so. With the reduced barrier to entry, hordes of less ex-
                                       perienced and less educated new entrants will appear as competitors. You might be one of
                                       them.
                                           Not a computer programmer? Are you a business analyst? Do you want to be Drew at
                                       AllRoad Parts? If so, Jason, Kelly, and Lucas will rely on you to provide requirements for AllRoad
                                       Parts’ mobile applications. The capabilities of mobile software in two years will be drastically
                                       different from those today. How do you, as Drew, respond? Maybe an html5 application is all the
                                       company needs. Maybe it need not even consider a native app. AllRoad Parts and many other
                                       organizations will need employees with the skills and abilities to assess the contribution that
                                       mobile technology can make to their strategies.
                                           Additionally, continually evolving software means new and exciting entrepreneurial
                                         opportunities. Are you sorry that you missed the early days working at Facebook? Right now,
                                       somewhere, there is another Mark Zuckerberg starting . . . well, what? Because of the con-
                                       tinually changing software environment, new opportunities abound and will continue to do
                                       so for decades.

                                       Data

                                       Many more mobile systems mean an incredible amount of new data, data that professionals can
                                       use to create much more information. But, as you learned in Chapter 1, more data doesn’t nec-
                                       essarily mean more information. In fact, many business professionals believe they’re drowning
                                       in data while starving for information. What can be done with all of this mobile-systems data
                                       to enable humans to conceive information of greater value to them? Data mining and better
                                       reporting are possibilities for you that are discussed in Chapter 9.
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