In the last few years, I have observed a paradigm shift in the mobile space both in the US and the markets abroad. The next 2-3 years will bring in a lot of opportunities for entrepreneurs in the area of building mobile applications. This development will be similar to the transition of a computer to desktop PC to laptop. Any applications running on PCs will be available on the mobile phone in the near future. And the driving force behind this will be the growing demand for smartphones ? android, apple, blackberry, windows, and the development platform they offer. Blackberry leads the pack in terms of the opportunities it provides entrepreneurs for developing ingenious mobile applications, and android too will soon catch up in this market because of its openness.
The mobile applications market itself will see a change in the next few years. Thousands of applications have just started scratching the surface and there is still a lot of potential that needs tapping into. I believe that the focus will change from consumer driven applications to enterprise driven applications on mobile.
Many first time entrepreneurs believe that they can thrive by building applications and selling them on app stores and end up starting a dot com company. What they do not realize is that at the end of the day, each one of them is no different from the other. This needs to change. Entrepreneurs need to analyze the pain points in the industry and start focusing on solving them. This requires a good industry experience and capital and a fresh look at their business model. Entrepreneurs simply need to look at the everyday problems in different sectors and develop enterprise mobile applications that can help solve industry specific problems like those in healthcare, BFSI, utilities, and the other verticals. When this happens, entrepreneurs will drive the next big wave in the mobile space.
The author is CEO of Bravura Technologies. Bravura Technologies is a leading provider of mobile apps for enterprise use.