Vendors such as Microsoft and Apple need to have more conversations with enterprises building mission critical applications on their operating systems higher up-stream, Jim Bailey, Accenture’s global mobility lead warned.
Enterprise customers who are building systems on well-known consumer brand operating systems need more notice of updates to avoid compatibility issues and breakage.
“Enterprises learn [about OS changes] at the same time as consumers do. Increasingly OS providers will need to work with providers up-stream because if you have a mission critical application running on an OS system and if it is not entirely compatible it may suffer issues or breakage.
“There is an industry-wide recognition that more conversations need to occur, rather than it being common practice at the moment,” said Bailey.
Recently launched Windows 10 upgrade caused controversy over its as-a-service billing model, which technology lawyers warned businesses against using until the vendor clarifies its licensing terms.
Many enterprises will have hundreds, or thousands, of Windows-installed devices and be testing new features to see what interoperability issues may arise.
Those using the Dynamics CRM will be waiting for a spring update announced this month, which will see new social, mobile, analytics and Office 365 upgrades.
It hopes to alleviate device compatibility issues with a “configure once, deploy everywhere” model and a new SDK kit to create relevant apps on the platform. The upgrade will go live by summer this year.
As firms become increasingly mobile and invest more in “killer apps”, OS system providers need to work with enterprise to minimise system issues on their customer-facing apps too.
Firms are considering applications for phones, tablets, phablets – even smart watches. But amongst this “continuous spectrum” of devices, Bailey said that there is a mobile OS oligopoly that makes it easier for firm’s to assess which systems to cater for and update accordingly, but there is a lot of scope for vendors to alleviate the unknown for developers waiting for iOS upgrades, for example.
Margi Murphy, IDG News Service
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