Bringing Apps and Start-ups Together Cost is a prohibitive factor for every SMB and they need service providers who can help them deploy applications quickly and cost-effectively
By Prabhakar Jayakumar •
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In 2018, $101 billion was spent at app stores worldwide and each individual spent three hours every day on mobile phones. As consumers gravitate towards apps for news, food, information, social networking and more; every enterprise wants to leverage the app economy to its advantage.
While large enterprises employ an army of developers, small and medium businesses (SMBs) lack that luxury. Cost is a prohibitive factor for every SMB and they need service providers who can help them deploy applications in minutes so that they can focus on innovative ways to strengthen customer relationships. App deployments need to be plug-and-play. Cloud service providers can play an important role as enablers, as the cloud forms the bedrock of the app economy.
Open-source adoption cloud providers that bring down costs by offering plug-ins based on open source software can assist start-up with growth and innovation. Apart from cost-effectiveness, developers can gain multiple benefits from leveraging open-source applications. Greater flexibility and agility, substantial security, shorter time-to-market, zero lock-ins, and greater reliability are other advantages.
By promoting open-source application development, these cloud providers can offer a service and bring together an ecosystem of technologies and technology providers.
Also Read: The 10 Things You Must Do From Day One So Your Startup Thrives
Simplified app deployments developers need the cloud as well as applications to run on the cloud. Today, developers in the SMB space can take anywhere from days to weeks and months to develop and deploy applications. Long app development times cannot match the short time-to-market requirements of the business environment.
Cloud providers can support such businesses by plugging partner applications to their cloud infrastructure. For instance, a new, small cafe in Bengaluru might need to build brand awareness and engagement through a Web application. If the cloud service provider hosts a Web app management platform such as WordPress, along with an open source HTTP server, server-side scripting language to develop the Web app, and a plug-in to enhance the Web app speed; the cafe owner can quickly setup a WordPress-based Web app in minutes. This means that without a developer and coding, a small business can set up a Web app within minutes.
Optimized data management over the last two years, 90 per cent of all data was created. As data processing becomes crucial for the progress of digitization, modern app development requires efficient data management and processing. After all, the hallmark of successful app development is that the app must engage users to generate content or data and then process the data generated to garner insights, which can enhance the performance of the app or brand. However, shrinking time-to-markets mean that setting up databases must be quick and fail-proof. Here, cloud service providers can be of great help. By offering open-source databases on the cloud, these service providers can redress a key challenge for app developers.
Also Read: 7 Key Cloud Computing Trends That Will Shape Enterprise Computing In 2020
These are just some of the ways in which cloud service providers can play a role in the modernization of application development. By offering developer tools, container-based application development, analytics and monitoring plug-ins, these providers can not only differentiate their offerings but also simplify and enhance the development process for teams. Less coding, limitless scalability, exceedingly fast deployments, and fool-proof security are the pillars of tomorrow's app economy, powered by the cloud.
As the era of cloud-native development makes progress, these services providers—especially those focused on the SMB market—will have to focus on providing plug-ins, tools and techniques that will simplify the deployment and use of containers, micro-services, and DevOps. The cloud-based infrastructure must not only support the creation of new apps, but also simplify upgrades to existing ones.
