iPad: Gadget For Fun or Business

A modern tablet is something having sight, senses, feelings, able to orient itself in the environment and time and that can be controlled with just one button. iPad is widely used in many spheres of our life: for example, by travel agencies (for presenting possible routes and buying trips by one click) as well as by insurance agents and lawyers as iPad gives many possibilities for making and storing document forms and their own signatures and print-outs. The gadget is also useful for doctors for keeping and having at hand a great number of medical history sheets.

Moreover, iPad is likely to change the media industry and our opinion on educational services. Now many software development companies already create about thirds of all mobile apps for various educational purposes. Of course, experts agree that iPad won’t replace a common netbook. But it has a great potential.  iPad doesn’t support Adobe Flash and thus users can’t watch videos but if they try iPad once, they’ll never leave it.

A user is online all the time and it gives unlimited possibilities for mobile application developers, marketers and other businessmen if they manage to make a profit on this.

But there are skeptics who think that iPad is only suitable for entertaining content and is not suitable for solving business tasks. They consider other mobile devices such as based on Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7 and Android are more perspective.

Gaming Industry Is Safe From Declining

According to the analytics of the Gartner Research IT company, in the nearest years the gaming industry is likely to grow steadily.

If we look at the annual report ‘Gaming Ecosystem 2011’ published recently, we’ll see that basic technological and business models will go on developing in the already established manner till 2015.  Thus, the expenses on goods and services connected with computer and video games spent by software development companies are expected to reach $112 bln.

In 2011 millions of players all over the world will spend on similar entertainment about $74.426 bln, which is 10.4% more in comparison with the similar figures last year. At the same time gaming hardware (consoles and PC) will count for $17 bln, purchasing games (gaming software) – $44.73 bln and the rest $11.899 bln is expenses on online gaming.

By 2013 the expenses on gaming goods and services will reach $97.204 bln, when the market share of online games will double up to $21.453 bln. ‘The market growth means that for most people the expenses on gaming will become the basic item of their entertaining budget’, said Fabrizio Biscotti, the Head of Gartner Analytical Department.

If we talk about the software structure, the segment of the market with the fastest growing potential is the mobile games market. Its market share will increase from 15% in 2010 till 20% in 2015. ‘Smartphones and tablets are not exclusively gaming devices but they are becoming more and more popularity’, stated Tuong Nguyen, another manager from Gartner. ‘Now mobile games are the downloaded with an impressive speed’. And mobile application development is growing from day to day. If you don’t believe me, go to the App Store and make it sure.

Twitter Launches New Portal for Developers

The microblogging service is preparing a new special site for software developers developing third-party applications.  According to the representatives of the company, the site will be launched in July.

According to Ryan Sarver, the head of the Twitter platform development, the popular service is going to provide apps developers and their partners with a free access to the information.

The Twitter management expects that with the help of this new site they’ll be able to establish a contact with developers. The site will publish recommendations and tips on software development services. Moreover, the site will have a forum for developers where the microblogging service officials will leave their comments.

As one of the reason for launching a new site is a rapid growth in the number of developers interested in Twitter, connected with the service integration into the mobile platform Apple iOS.

On June 30 Twitter announced that the number of messages sent by users has increased three times for the last year. Every day microbloggers leave 200 mln messages in Twitter.

Agile Development: Pros and Cons

The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) published the results of the annual rating “The Global Outsourcing 100″. In 2011 four Belarusian IT software development companies appeared in the rating. How have they managed to do it? What is the result of such success?

One of the main reasons is using new effective technologies in the sphere of management, agile being one of them.
Recently agile software development is considered to be panacea for all woes turning any IT project into successful. Many western clients give preference to the companies working with agile.

The main peculiarities of agile are:

•    risk sharing – at present there are two main types of interaction with a client – fixed-priced and time-and-material contracts. In the first case all the risks on the project fall on the contractor, while in the second type the client pays for the actual work, which works little on the final result;
•    predictability – the refusal from long-term planning as well as the absence of figures on schedule and cost of the product in general;
•    regular feedback – the customer can introduce comments and alterations practically from the beginning of the project;
•    easy and quick reaction to changes in functional requirements as well as priorities;
•    selforganization – which allows escaping from the excessive management structure.

Why don’t companies want to switch to Agile?

The first reason is conventionalism: many companies think it’s not a good idea to change the familiar scheme which works and bring profit. The second reason is lack of experience in using the new system and the fear of failure in getting non-achieving immediate results. The third reason is additional resources for creating the working team and supporting its highly productive state.

Thus, in order to minimize the risk one a software development company should ope the ground for implementing Аgile on various levels: management level and development level.  This process can take from 3 to 6 months but the effect in the long term is worth doing it.