Background of Cloud Platform on Mobile Applications

Cloud computing, in simplest word means delivery of computing service over the internet. The services includes computing storage, computing infrastructure and computing platform. It is a revolutionary aspect of modern computing which has completely transferred the traditional computing techniques. Although the development of cloud computing has influenced major sectors, mobile applications is a relatively new addition in this list. Over the years, as mobiles are becoming cheaper and resourceful, the preference for mobile apps is also growing. Hence the platform for developing the apps are also getting versatile in terms of features and offerings. The cloud platform as the support for mobile applications development and distribution is an approach in this direction.

In this context two articles will be reviewed that have explored this concept. The first journal has discussed about the background of the application of cloud platform on mobile applications. The journal has discussed the application of the cloud platform from the developer point of view as the major portion of the journal has discussed about the benefits of the cloud platform, especially how it helps in managing the applications development.

The research question considered by the first journal are 1) is cloud computing necessary for application development? And 2) in what aspect it has improved the mobile application development.  In the second journal the research questions considered are 1) how far cloud computing has improved the user experience in mobile application and 2) is cloud computing is truly revolutionizing the mobile industry or it just a hype ?

In the first article, Porterfield and Raisch (2015), before driving into the application and benefits discusses about the limitation and constraints that developer encounters, especially when the application needs to be developed for the mobile platform. The first and the major limitation that developers encounter is the lack of resources. The authors mention that if the mobile platform is compared with the PC or desktop, the difference is clear. When developing application for the desktop platform, the developers have the liberty to do a lot of experiment as they did not have to think about the extensive resources management. The cloud platform helps to manage the resources for the mobile devices. The resources that are needed for the application development is added to the cloud. The resources are available whenever it is needed. Hence the cloud provides an excellent mean for adding and retrieving the resources whenever it is required.

Once application are developed the next major requirement is to host the application. Without hosting the application, it is not possible to make the application ready for the consumers. However this process is not only complex it also involves extensive infrastructure support. Porterfield and Raisch (2015) here have talked about the amazon EC2 platform which have pioneered the idea of sharing of infrastructure through cloud. According to the journal as the EC2 platform trough cloud has made the sharing and managing of the infrastructure simple and effective both in terms of time and money required, majority of the application developers have opted for the cloud hosting of application compared to in the premises hosting. In premises application hosting not only requires extensive support for the infrastructure, it also requires technical expertise. Hence the cloud application hosting is becoming popular for its simplicity and effectiveness.

Benefits of Cloud Platform for Developers

According to the Porterfield and Raisch (2015), although the primary purpose for application is not all about the problem solving and offer something with which the application was developed, however monetizing the app is another important requirement of the app developers. This aspect is justified as the developers have to recover the money invested for the application development. However the platform for the in app purchase was never been so flexible. Hence the Apple and the ITunes were so popular among the developer community. The reason was not only it paid higher, it was lot simpler than the other options that were available in the market. The journal also mentions that the payment option offered by the Apple was not flawless either, the reason it was popular it was relatively better. However, there were still requirement for even better payment system, but the required platform was still missing. With the introduction of the cloud platform, several payment gateway has been developed that provides alternative solution compared to the traditional payment solution. One of the important feature for the cloud based payment solution is that it is customisable according to the need of the application and the developer. With the cloud based payment option, it is easier for the developers to manage the transaction made by the clients through the application. Moreover the authority of the transaction is reserved by the developers and hence there is no chance of loss of sales due to bugs in software. However it might be a problem if the system responsible for the transaction is built in-house.

The success of any application, as pointed out by Porterfield and Raisch (2015) are largely dependent on knowing the customer well. The cloud computing has helped the developers to take this approach to a complete new level. With the help of cloud computing it is possible for the developers to capture the details of the customer interaction with the application with more insight and hence it is possible to analyse the behaviour of the customer with more effective result.  Analyse of the customer behaviour will help to understand the preference and the need of the consumer. It will help to improve the features of the application so that it meets the customer need. Thus the cloud platform is an effective choice not only for the application development but for the after service of the application as well and that is equally important.

The cloud platform is also an effective option for the monitoring of the application. the author mention that even if the in-hose server is equipped with the latest tools and technology, if the server get down, it will not be able to monitor the performance of the application. The applications need to be monitored on a continuous basis and in order to do that an external system is necessary. The cloud provides support for that and hence it is an effective tool for the developer.

According to the journal, the cloud is a perfect match for the mobile environment. The lifecycle of the mobile application development is short. Hence the resource needs to be available at the readymade basis. The development of the mobile application is not possible to be delayed for a long time. The cloud platform provides faster and easier access to the resources for the application development. Hence the cloud platform has emerged as one of the leading choice for mobile application development.

Resource Management and Infrastructure Support

The journal has opted for the secondary research method for the research paper.  Reijonen et.al (2015) have collected relevant literatures in the topic and analysed that. The authors have analysed the articles and also the findings. After analysing the findings the authors have presented an opinion. Although there is no ethical issue in the process in the data collection as the authors have given due credits to the authors of the selected articles, the process is not effective. The topic needs research from the practical point of view as the constraints and the limitations applicable for each application development is different in its approach and requirements. Hence it is not an effective choice to generalize the approach, especially when the findings are based on the some other works. The author might not have any idea how those journal have reached into those conclusions that the authors have presented for their own papers. Hence the data analysis method is not so effective at all in this context.

In the second journal, Reijonen et.al (2015) has mentioned that, although cloud application are becoming an alternative approach for the mobile application and it is proving to be effective for the application developer. The major benefits are for the customers for which the applications are being made.

According to the authors in the second journal, although the cloud computing was developed for the business uses, toady the cloud computing is influencing the personal use as well. Cloud computing is being heavily used for enhancing the user experience in the mobile computing. Previously the use of cloud computing for the mobile application development was not as prominent as the infrastructure was not suitable for mobile application. One of the constraint was the lack of high speed internet. Now with the popularity of the broadband internet, high speed internet has become more affordable and the average speed of the mobile internet has also improved. As the high speed internet has become more affordable the mobile applications have also improved with the integration of the cloud platform. It has significantly improved the way people interact with the apps and also the way the application serves the user requirement.

Reijonen et.al (2015) introduce the fact with the introduction of the cloud platform in the mobile application the feature that have been improved significantly is the way data is stored and retrieved. Previously when the applications did not support the cloud platform, the data containing app data, app settings and every other data related to the application need to be stored locally either in the phone or in some external storage. In order to access the data physical access to the data is not only necessary, it is must. However the cloud service provides an effective mean to store and retrieve the data. The application provides the users to store the data to cloud and the data can be retrieved from anywhere any time, hence providing users more flexibility and versatility in terms of user experience.

One of the significant portion of the app store according to the authors are dedicated to the games. A significant number of the application users are the game users. In fact the application market is driven by the games. Hence there has always been a requirement for improving the user experience while playing the game. The mobile game was always ordinary as compared to the PC gaming experience. The user interface and the graphic interface of the mobile games were always simple and it was not at all attractive. So companies always wanted to improve the mobile gaming experience through high intensive graphics and game play. The impact of the cloud platform is not that much on simple games, but the impact is significant on the graphic intensive and online gaming. The cloud platform combined with high speed internet access makes it possible to obtain the full gaming experience on the mobile device. The cloud service, according to the authors has also made application outside the games successful. The reason these application are successful is because it offers services that are of too much importance which is to make the decision making process for day to day activities lot easier. These services range from application providing real time traffic update to application providing details when cars need to be repaired. According to the authors the applications, without the cloud service will not be able to provide these advanced functionality to the users of the application.

Cloud-Based Payment Solutions

The authors have also highlighted the way the cloud service helps the application developer. The authors makes it clear that it is not only the users who are getting benefitted from the cloud computing, it has also many things in offering for the developers as well.  As the mobile application development is based on such a platform that there are so many constraints that needs to be addressed. In this regard the journal to some extent seems to be comply with the first article. The authors in the second journal as compared to the first journal also points out the same constraints for developing applications for the mobile platform. These constraints are lack of resources and computing power. The lack of storage is also a major issue for the application development. In this regard both of the articles seems to agree and both the articles have made it clear that the impact of cloud computing is significant on the mobile applications. The first journal has focused on the development aspect of the application, while this journal has prioritized the impact of cloud computing on improving the user interaction and the user experience while accessing the applications through cloud service.

The journal has opted for both secondary and primary data collection. The data collection method is ethical as no violation was made for the collection of the data. The resource for the secondary data collection has been properly identified and presented as well. The primary data collection process have been described as well. The primary data collection method that have been considered here is survey and interview to understand the user experience for having solid foundation for obtaining data for the research.  Although the authors have claimed that no bias was made for the collection of the primary data, however it is not possible to verify the claim. The author might have made bias while doing the interview or might distort the opinion of the users. Hence it is assumed that proper and ethical standard has been followed for the data collection. The researchers have deployed the application on cloud platform and tested the applications on their own. The results have been obtained after the testing of the applications and those results have been analysed to assess the effect of the cloud service on the experience of the app service. The secondary research have been selected by the author for having idea about the way previous research have been conducted and results that have been obtained. It provided an easy reference for conducting the original research. Hence the data collection and analysis method is not only ethical but effective too.

The essay concludes that although two articles have taken two different aspect of the same topic for research. Now it might seem that the comparison is not justified as there is difference in the topic chosen. However if closely observed, it can be said that both the topics are actually related. The first journal has discussed about the impact of cloud platform in improving the experience of mobile application development and improvement in development means improvement in the user experience which is the research topic in the second article. So after considering and reviewing the two articles, it can be said that cloud computing has improved the user experience a lot while improving the development process. Both the journal has addressed areas like research ethics, data collection method quite well. However in terms of paper presentation, the first journal is somehow better than the second article. However the choice might vary depending on the reader. Hence this aspect might not be regarded as the quality feature for assessing the articles and it is fair to say that both the articles have done its research properly with proper data collection method.

References:

Porterfield, T.E. and Raisch, W., 2015. Cloud computing and the impact on mobile application: an empirical investigation of information exchange and firm performance. International Journal of computing development and application, 40(6), pp.435-455.

Reijonen, H., Hirvonen, S., Nagy, G., Laukkanen, T. and Gabrielsson, M., 2015. How Cloud computing improving and enhancing the development of mobile application: an introductory approach.  Journal of modern application development, 30(5), pp.420-450.